Dread The Walking Dead: Morality
by The Alpha Gray Wolf
Summary: An original story set in the comic universe of The Walking Dead twelve years after the outbreak. In Canada, a group consisting of prisoners, teenagers, and a small family work together to survive the zombie apocalypse and save themselves from both the dead and the living while keeping with their goals in maintaining a sense of morals. Follow Aiello and his family's journey.
1. Issue 1

**Warning: Mentions of suicide.**

**Disclaimer: I only own the stuff I made up. The rest belong to the rightful owners.**

**Extended Summary: An original story set in the comic universe of **_**The Walking Dead**_** where in Canada, a group consisting of prisoners, teenagers, and a small family work together to survive the zombie apocalypse and save themselves from both the dead and the living. **

* * *

British Columbia

Day 1 of the apocalypse: July 18, 2003

He regretted nothing. If he didn't escape, then he would've had his face chewed off by whatever monster that was that attacked him in his cell. His former cellmate had committed suicide and came back to life to attack him. He had to smash his brains against the sink to defend himself, but the police would see it another way. He slipped through the bars using the blood as a slippery lubricant and ran for his life through the back door of the prison. He climbed over the fence, clipping himself numerous times as he crawled through the barbed wire.

Aiello Korell was the name of Prisoner 872010.

If he was sent back to jail for escaping, then he was going to tell the judge, jury, and everybody else in the courtroom that he fled from the prison to survive, not to gain freedom.

He figured that he was not going to be on the run for too long. They already had his DNA, fingerprints, everything. Pretty soon, they would be putting up wanted posters and people will be looking for a five-foot-eleven caucasian seventeen-year-old boy with wavy blond hair and blue eyes named Aiello Korell.

Even as he ran, he knew that in order to avoid going back to that cannibal infested prison, he would need to find clothes and strip out of his prison uniform. As he ran away from prison and into the wilderness, he kept constantly looking over his shoulder. He escaped during the daytime and there were guards out but they were oblivious.

As he escaped and the prison was out of sight, he didn't stop running until he jumped over a stream of freshwater and crouched down to quench his dehydration. "What the hell is going on?" he asks himself as he scoops up water and drinks. "That guy tried to eat me."

Aiello was not in the dark completely, however. He had heard reports of something. Some kind of disease has been spotted in several American states. He had no idea what kind of disease it was, however. He had no idea if it was some kind of bacteria, virus, parasite, fungus, protozoa, chemical agent, or hell, it could've been a supernatural disease that has been awakened from something ancient, biblical, or cursed upon by some kind of witch. Either way, the disease had the same effect: It reanimates the dead.

One hundred and thirty-one days ago, people started coming back from the dead in California. Then it began spreading to Arizona, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, Washington, and just seventeen days ago, it reached Mexico. Just the day before today, after hearing about some officer being shot in the line of duty in Cynthiana, Kentucky, there have been reports of people getting back up after being shot thirty times in the chest.

"There is nothing natural about what is happening," Aiello trembles as he reflects on the current events, "United States, Mexico, and now Canada is infested with dead people coming back to life. Like fucking zombies!" (**Note: The term 'zombie' does exist in the comic universe of **_**The Walking Dead**__)_ He was slightly panicking upon thinking of what could happen. "It's an apocalypse. A fucking zombie apocalypse. Three countries, it's not an isolated incident, it's a pandemic!"

It did bring him comfort to know that with the world going to hell, he was no longer going to rot away with his life sentence. He splashed some water on his face and started walking away from the stream and deeper into the wilderness. "If I've been in the same cell as that guy, does that mean I'm infected?" Panic filled his voice and he looked at his hands in terror. There was still blood on them. Blood that wasn't his. "No, I'm fine."

Just as he calmed himself down from the fear of infection, the loud alarm of the prison went off and echoed throughout the wilderness. Aiello jumped in shock and went running back to see what was going on. He climbed up a hill and hid behind a tree and crouched to see what was going on. He narrows his eyes and puts a hand above his brows to focus.

He could barely see tiny orange figures limping towards tiny black figures with riot shields. The orange figures were prisoners and the black figures were SWAT soldiers. The prisoners were soaked in their own blood and were being shot up, but they still limped for the SWAT soldiers. Several prisoners were coming out of the building to run for their lives with more limping prisoners slowly pursuing after them.

Three of the escaping prisoners climbed over a barbed-wire fence and ran for the woods in his direction. As they ran forward and got closer to him, Aiello began recognizing them. The one in front had red hair and was the tallest: Atticus Gagnon, convicted for three life sentences, which was seventy-five years jail time and he was only twenty-eight years old, but already served four years.

The second one was the youngest of the three, eighteen years of age with blond hair and tanned skin. Convicted for twenty years for thirty counts of aggravated assault, Harris Boucher.

The third one was the oldest with dark hair and brown eyes, being thirty-one and serving one year in prison for petty robbery, Chris Tremblay.

"Over here," Aiello called out to them, "Over here and get down," he whispered loudly for them to hear when they came closer. Aiello ran back and jumped over a big boulder and hid behind it. The three prisoners copied his example and took cover. Aiello waited for them to catch their breaths before he finally spoke. "What happened in there? Zombies?"

"What, you talking about those things in there?" Atticus asked in a broken Candian accent. "Those prisoners tried to bite me in the throat, almost killed me in the process."

"How did those prisoners die?"

"Suicide," Harris answered for the two. "One guy in one of the cafeterias committed suicide by having himself choke on his fork. Doctors came to take him away and the next thing I know, doctors come walking out the room, biting into the throats of other prisoners, spreading the infection."

"We gotta get out of here," Chris trembled, "Maybe the US will have an explanation for what's going on." His suggestion was thrown back in his face by Aiello.

"For all we knew, they caused this. I mean, the virus or whatever originates in the US and spreads North and South to Mexico and Canada. We're on our own. We might as well rob the next house we come across, steal the food, supplies, water, car, and drive to the airport and get on a plane to Greenland."

"We don't have any passports," Atticus points out the flaws in the plan.

"Let's just get out of these prison uniforms and then we'll figure out what to do."

* * *

Day 2

In the city of Vancouver, a tall man around the age of forty with brown hair and a beard named Evan unloads a box from a moving truck into a house. He sets the box down in the middle of an empty living room and sighed as he stood back up. He looks around the new house that they were going to be staying in. "Ryan, Mila!"

A group of teenagers, a male, and female, eighteen and seventeen respectively with the names of Ryan and Milia, brother and sister, stepped out one of the rooms to respond to their father's calling.

Ryan was a tall teenager around six feet, his hair was the same color as his father's and he was growing a small five o'clock shadow on his chin and mouth. Being eighteen, he had a girlfriend whom he left back home in Alberta after graduating. He was a socialist and had plans to study politics at college.

Then there was Mila, only five-one in height and had brown hair but she dyed it purple in order to look cool. Unlike her loud brother, she was quiet and an introvert. She had no boyfriend, plans to attend college, but she had plans after school. She was going to be an author of murder mysteries.

"What's up, Dad?" Ryan says casually, "We just found a room that I called dibs on."

"I was just about to go back out to the truck to grab the couch," Evan explains. "Would you mind helping me?"

"Why not?" Ryan was already walking out the front door and back to the moving truck. As he walked through the front door with his father, he passed his beautiful thirty-nine-year-old mother named Tanya with sandy hair. He high fives her with a smile.

Tanya then approached Mila to give her a task. "Can you do something for me?"

Mila shrugged with a tilt of her head. "Depends on the task; my friend has been phoning me all day and I can only ignore them for so long."

Tanya was quite annoyed how her own daughter would spend a lot of time on her phone rather than spend time with her family. "Since it is our first night in our new home, can you go pick up some food?"

"All by myself?" Mila asks with sarcasm obvious in her voice, "Ryan can do that."

"Already asked him and he said he would rather stay and help. I would go but my driving privileges are still suspended. Your father, he is needed here to move stuff in and out of the house so you're our only hope."

Mila was about to protest but decided it would be a good idea to go for a drive all by herself. She spent the last sixteen hours on a long car drive with her brother sitting next to her, bickering about a number of subjects and she just wanted to be all by herself. She was not really a social person and preferred being all by herself. So without any hesitation, she asked her mother for her keys so she can go pick up a pizza. "I brought my wallet with me so I'll pay."

"Where are you going?" Tanya asks in curiosity.

"Goldies Pizza. I'll be back in twenty minutes or so." Mila was at the front door when her mother stopped her.

"Be careful out there," she warned her daughter. "An illness has been spotted in Mexico and the United States and one of the states infected is Washington, which is right next to Vancouver so be careful and stay away from cities."

Mila knew about the disease spreading out there and she knew that she had to be careful. Even with CDC scientists trying to figure out the biology of this mysterious illness, the disease appears to be bloodborne, not airborne, and is infecting people in big cities. "I promise to keep using hand sanitizer." She wished her mother a good farewell before she climbed into the family car to drive off to the pizza place. Strangely, even though it was their first day in Vancouver, the city seemed empty instead of full. Usually, when the new kid is in class for the first time, they feel overwhelmed because there are so many new faces in their class. But this was the exact opposite for there were barely any cars out and a lot more people were walking to their destination instead of driving.

"Earth day must've come earlier," she joked to herself sarcastically.

There was no traffic on the road, so that made it easier to get to her destination. Even as she parked her car in the parking lot, went in to pick up four pizzas (one supreme, one pepperoni, one cheese, and one with pineapple and anchovies), the news of the mysterious illness made its way to the Canadian news. Even after paying the thirty dollars with a half-off coupon, she kept her eyes on the news to see where the illness was spreading.

Outside the pizza place, Aiello, Atticus, Chris, and Harris were hiding behind an alleyway, successful in finding civilian clothes from a donation center, and we're looking to see what cars they could steal. Aiello peeked over the corner to see the parking lot near the pizza place. He saw one girl with purple hair handling four pizzas to her car. Aiello crouched down and wadded over to the purple-haired girl's location.

He waits for her to unlock her car and load the pizzas in the back before he finally makes his move. He wraps his hands tight around Mila's body, causing her to scream and drop the pizzas just for a split second before he put his hand over her mouth and nose to block off her breathing system. He had no intention of killing her, only rendering her unconscious in the most painless way possible.

Mila struggled as her face turned red and her eyes went wide. Her lungs felt like they were going to explode within her. She licked her captor's hand and it caused him to squirm in discomfort. She kicked him in the groin area and he folded into an L shape, clutching his groin area with pain.

Atticus came running out and punched Mila in the face before she could do anything. She kept consciousness, but fell to the ground, clutching her cheek in pain.

"You fucker!" Aiello growled, "You fucking child abuser!" He attacks Atticus. "You don't hit a girl." He punches him in the stomach and slams him against the neighboring car. He hammers his head into the hood of the car. "You don't ever hit a girl!"

"What about you talking? Choking her out?!"

"You were choking her out!" Aiello shouted to him, under the genuine belief that it was actually Atticus choking the girl unconscious and not him. "I was bringing no harm to her." A punch across Atticus's face. "You deserve to die; I know why you were sentenced to three consecutive life sentences."

With shaking hands, Mila crawled back up to her feet to see Atticus, her 'attacker', and Aiello, her 'savior'. Wanting revenge for choking her, she rips her taser from her front pocket and jams it into Atticus's calf. The prisoner groaned in pain and fell over to the side and began spasming.

Aiello backed up against the car and stared down at the tased Atticus in horror before shifting focus to the taser, wondering if Mila was going to stab him with the taser. But she didn't and he was spared from pain and was hugged as a result instead.

Aiello was hit completely off guard with the hug as he had no idea that the girl that he 'saved' would hug him. "Thank you for saving me," she spoke softly. She gazed into the eyes of her 'savior' unaware that her 'savior' was actually her original attacker. Even in her mind, she was still under the belief that Atticus was the real attacker considering that he punched her and she still gazed down at the ground at her 'attacker' and kicked him. Atticus groaned in pain and looked at the girl that just assaulted him.

"What the hell?" he exclaimed in discontent, "You tased me!"

"You punched me," Mila countered, preparing to stab him with the taser again. "You punched me and choked me."

"I punched you," Atticus admitted, not a hint of shame in his voice as he rubbed his sore calf before looking back up at the purple-haired girl. "But I did not choke you."

"Who did then?"

Atticus sold out his ally.

Mila looked at Aiello over her shoulder and smirked at him, pointing the taser at him. "This guy was choking me? He saved my life."

"He is not who you think he is," Atticus continued to snitch and twitch.

"You'll have to excuse my friend," Aiello quickly interjected between the teenager and former prisoner. "He fought in Desert Storm and he hasn't been the same ever since. He attacked you because his mind thought you were an Iraqi." He said nothing for the longest time as he finally stared into the eyes of the girl that he almost choked out. Her beautiful hair, dyed an unnatural hair color, her soft skin that he wanted to touch, her beautiful eyes that pierced his soul.

He was in love. It wasn't weird because they were both seventeen but he was a prisoner and she was an innocent civilian. _It's the apocalypse, so backgrounds really won't matter when it comes to love. I've never seen anything so beautiful before._

Harris and Chris came out of their hiding spot, gazing at the three but focusing primarily on Aiello because he seems to be in a trance from staring into Mila's eyes.

Mila looked over Aiello's shoulder to see a man in a large raincoat limping over towards them. The man's skin had a distinct gray tone and the eyes were cloudy. The smell coming off the man almost made Mila gag.

Aiello was snapped out of his trance when the growling of the limping person neared him. He snapped his head to the left and saw the limping zombie almost on top of him. He puts his hands on the zombie's chest and shoves back with all his strength. The zombie already grabbed ahold of Aiello's shoulders and snarled and snapped its teeth near his neck area. "Holy shit, help me!"

Atticus backed away in fear and ran back to Harris and Chris while Mila stayed behind to return the favor to her 'savior.' She tased the zombie and this had little to no effect on the monster if any. Aiello was able to shove the zombie back slightly and it went tripping on the sidewalk with Aiello falling on top. Accidentally, his fist collided with the zombie's skull as he fell and his fist went straight through the cranium and blood splattered on the ground and on Aiello's cheeks. Mila groaned in disgust, almost throwing up upon smelling the foul stench of the dead body and turned away but Aiello was left sitting on the dead zombie, traumatized from his first kill and began crying, fearful that he was going to go to jail for second-degree murder and get fifteen years added on his sentence.

* * *

**To those who have read my Spiderman: Homecoming story, vote on my profile page if you want me to make a trilogy for Spiderman: Homecoming.**


	2. Issue 2

_Day 2_

_They are ambushed are a small group of walkers and they escape with their lives in the car. They make it back into the city, ditching their prison uniforms. Night falls and the four criminals and girl drive home in Evan's car. A major pileup on the drive back to Mila's house breaks out with Aiello crashing the car and sending Harris through the window and killing him. Just as the passengers recover from the trauma, Harris reanimates and attacks them, taking a chunk out of Chris's arm. Aiello manages to kill the infected Harris as more cars in the middle of the road begin stopping, and more people staggering out._

_The criminals take their chances and they drive off once again. They plow through several of the undead and get back on the highway and get back to Mila's home, where the family of four and criminals decide to work together to survive, especially after Aiello saved Mila's life. Atticus attempts to rob the family of four, but Chris succumbs to the infection and dies in the backseat. Atticus tried to revive him, but the zombie Chris attacks him. Just as Atticus is unable to push the zombie Chris off, Mila stabs the zombie in the brain and kills it. _

* * *

Day 4,607

Twelve years ago, the entire world changed forever. On July 18, 2003, a mysterious virus has originated in the United States spread across the globe. Another year after that, the military and government collapsed and left the world all by itself. The zombies had outnumbered the humans five thousand to one so there was a total of 1.4 million people left still alive all over the world. Five years later, there was a total population of 1.6 million people left alive all over the world.

The virus is like a stereotypical zombie virus: Anyone infected with the virus will turn into an undead cannibalistic monster called zombie. How long it takes to turn into a zombie varies widely. Some can turn instantly, although it is extremely rare, while others take days to turn.

Twelve years is also how long Aiello Korell has survived this zombie apocalypse.

He was in Fairbanks, Alaska. He slowly creeps into an abandoned satellite station covered in snow. He went inside with a plan. He knew the place was not home to supplies, but home to a small gang of bandits. He was not a vigilante, he was just a twenty-nine-year-old survivor and father of a four-year-old. The leader of the bandits was a man named Carmine. Several weeks ago, Aiello's campsite with all his group members was raided by these bandits and they held his four-year-old son, Erik, at knifepoint. Carmine did.

Although Aiello's wife did try to persuade Aiello not to go on this vengeful quest, he stated that it's not vengeance, it's justice not only for his son but for all the people these bandits have either hurt or killed.

Aiello knew how the bandits operated because one of his group members used to be a bandit, but sadly they were killed in the raid. Aiello's entire family survived and moved to Alaska for a better sanctuary. Aiello promised as soon as he brought justice to the bandits, then he would follow his family back home to Vancouver.

He walks through the satellite station, his gun loaded, but not drawn. A bandit at the door asked him who he was and he answered. "My name is Aiello, I heard there is a man in charge here named Carmine, I wish to speak with him."

"Why?" the young bandit asked, "Why do you wish to speak with Carmine?"

"I want to be a part of his group. My brother used to be part of your guy's group and he put in a recommendation letter for me," he lied but proficiently.

"My name is Caleb, I will take you to Carmine. He's the kind of survivor who likes to meet new survivors face to face."

"I understand. No one survives this apocalypse for telve years by doing nothing. Take me to the man and I will take his job interview."

Caleb led Aiello throughout the halls, passing through several more bandits. He counted a total of four, plus Caleb. No matter what happened, Aiello was going to kill every single one of these bandits and then flee all the way home to be reunited with his son, wife, and those he considered to be his family.

When Caleb brought Aiello to the main room, there were two more subordinate bandits and the main bandit man, Carmine. Aiello stared at the yellow haired man with hate in his eyes. One of the bodyguards, whom Carmine called Malena, pulled out a chair for Aiello to sit in.

"Are you Carmine, leader of the bandits?" Aiello asked, wanting to be sure this was the moterhfucker that almost murdered his son. Instead of walking away, Caleb shut the door and stayed inside with Malena, the other bodyguard named Kaylyn, and the leader, Carmine.

"What are you doing here?" Carmine asked with a Brooklyn accent, which seemed strange because he was residing in Alaska and Brooklyn was all the way on the opposite side of North America. Aiello figured that he must've been from Brooklyn and shrugged it off.

"Hello, Carmine, my name is Aiello," he says politely as he takes a seat. He sets his scoped Ruger 30 on his lap before running a hand through his wavy blond hair. "I came here for recruitment."

"Why would you want to be with someone like us? You know who we are?" Carmine asked, sitting forward in his chair.

"If I didn't, I wouldn't be here. I know who you are and I know what you guys do to survive this world. I have done things like that before." He was half-lying. He was no bandit, he was the leader of a group of saviors and survivors called the Moral Ones, whose main goal is keeping humanity alive. The group was founded a few months ago in Alaska and they plan to make a nationwide reputation somehow. It was the zombie apocalypse so that would prove to be a difficult challenge, but they wanted to spread the message of morality and how even in this world, everybody has to have some kind of morality. They weren't about helping people, only influencing people.

"Aiello, do you have any skills that can be of some use to us?" Carmine asked like a job interviewer, "We only accept people who can help us stay alive for a long time."

"I am a very capable fighter, I am in peak physical human condition and I am capable of crafting bullets from scratch. I am also excellent at reading people and I have killed over two thousand zombies. Two thousand and nineteen to be exact."

"How many people have you killed, if any? We require people willing to take lives."

"I've killed a total of one hundred and seventeen." What Aiello said was true, but he never killed them in cold blood; that is not how the Moral Ones operate. They kill only in self-defense or for the greater good and what Aiello was about to do was for the greater good. He lost his mother and father to people like Carmine and he wanted to start a clean slate and murder murderers. "Do I have the job?"

Carmine answered, "Yes, welcome to the bandits. Is there anything else you would like to add on your behalf?" He was not trustworthy of Aiello yet and was trying to figure out his ulterior motives.

"A few weeks ago, you raided a camp from what I heard. You held a kid at knifepoint."

Carmine remembered as if it happened yesterday. "That is correct," he said proudly, "I held a little boy at knifepoint, why do you ask, Aiello?"

"I will answer a question with a question: Do you know who that kid's father was?"

Carmine's eyes widened because it didn't take long to put two and two together. The three bandits in the room picked up what was going on and each reacted differently. Caleb reached for his waist and pulled out a pistol. He clicks the safety off, but due to Aiello's keen senses, he heard the safety is turned off.

As fast as lightning, Aiello snatches his Beretta 92FS from his belt and shoots Caleb in the head behind him, killing him instantly. He then turns to Malena and shoots her before she could even raise her gun. Then he turned to the last one, Kaylyn and he shot her in the stomach. She collapses to the ground and moans in pain.

He trains his gun on Carmine, who instantly raises his hands in surrender and begged like the coward he was. "Please don't kill me. Please don't."

Aiello had no intention of killing a defenseless man so he offered an alternative. "How about this, if I ever see you again, then I will shoot you through the skull and I will make sure you die. Never let me catch you again. Disband your little bandit organization and run as far as you can in the middle of nowhere." He uses this opportunity to pick up his Ruger 30 and shoulder it.

The other three bandits, Cameron, Martin, and Marci came barging into the room and aimed their guns at Aiello.

Aiello tackled Carmine from the desk and they both went rolling to the ground. None of the three bandis dared to fire, fearing they would hit their leader by mistake.

Aiello overpowered Carmine and kicked him out the window behind him before he launched himself like a missile after him. The three bandits ran towards the window and looked down to see if they could find Carmine or Aiello.

"Shit, we lost them," Cameron growls.

"Cam, kill me. Please!" the wounded Kaylyn begged, slowly bleeding to death. Martin did the honors and shot Kaylyn in the head, ending her life.

Down below, Aiello landed in some deep snow and was buried. He unearthed himself and searched for Carmine. He was nowhere in sight, but he did not let his guard down. The storm was starting to brew up, which would hide Aiello from sight.

Cameron, Martin, and Marci made it downstairs and regrouped with their leader, who was shivering. "We have a hostile threat. It's the father of the boy we failed to kill at the camp. Make sure he doesn't live beyond today."

"Understood," Cameron nods, "Let's move out."

"You know what? Wound him and bring him back to me. Payback's a bitch." Carmine pressed his back against the wall while his two men and one woman went out to look for their target.

Aiello was hiding behind a totaled school bus with zombies inside. They growled and tried to bang their way out. Aiello saw that their skin decayed from their body and gave them an uncanny resemblance to skeletons.

"Poor kids," he whispered in sympathy, understanding that elementary kids were on the bus when the outbreak hit Alaska. Zombies began materializing from the blizzard, but they did not see Aiello, but he saw them.

He spotted a pair of feet that belonged to a bandit from under the bus. He crawls under just as the bandit circled the bus. Using the zombies to his advantage, he stabs the bandit in the achilles, dropping him to the ground and causing howling in pain and attract zombies. Through the snowstorm, he saw that it was the bandit named Cameron.

"Help me!" he shouts in both pain and fear as the zombies and infected come his way, drawn by his screams. He shoots them with his pistol, but he missed the kill spots and ran out of bullets in a flash. The zombies then began to devour him, biting into his skull and heart to make sure he does not get back up. Even after twelve years, zombies are still lethal and very creative with their kills besides eating their victims for whatever reason.

Martin and Marci open fire at the zombies coming to their path. Aiello crawls out from under the bus and runs away from the zombies. While the two bandits were distracted, he crouches down and takes aim with his scoped Ruger 30. Being able to see through the snowy winds, he shoots Marci in the throat. She drops to the floor besides Martin and she drowns in her own blood.

He prepares to shoot Martin, who had jumped into the air in shock and horror from the death of his associate and the gunshot that came in his direction until he heard a growl from behind. He turns around and shoots a zombie in the head, killing it, but he did not have enough time to reload before the zombies attacked him.

The zombie tries to bite Aiello in the forearm, but he is shoved back and a bullet pops him in the skull. Aiello did need to worry about catching the virus because he knew that everybody in the entire world is already infected. Bites do nothing but kill you and if you die, and your brain isn't destroyed, then you come back as a zombie. Those are the rules and apparently, if you are wounded from these things then you die but if zombie blood gets in your mouth or eye, you could be either sick or nothing will faze you at all. He wasn't immune as far as he knew and he did not want to turn into a zombie anytime soon. He did not survive twelve years only to die from a zombie bite.

Upon hearing the cries of a dying Cameron and the gunshot that took Marci away, Carmine decided to take action and hunt Aiello with his remaining bandit. "Follow the sounds of the gunshot," he ordered before he and Martin ran off into the snow.

Aiello heard footsteps and turned around to see Carmine and Martin running and gunning at him. Aiello makes a run into the blizzard, killing more and more zombies along the way. Once he got away from the satellite outpost, he was in the woods that was surrounded by zombies. He did not use any of his guns, for he did want to draw more attention to him, so he used his knife.

He left some alive for Carmine and Martin to deal with and slow them down.

"All right you prick, where are you?" Carmine shouted through the snowstorm. "My bandits and I grew up in Alaska. We grew up in snowstorms like this. You can't hide from us."

Aiello heard Carmine's voice and continued to run off. He wasn't trying to escape, he was trying to weed the two murderers out.

"Come on out and make it easier on yourself. We'll make your death a quick one if you surrender. I was considering just taking in you in alive, but after what you did to Cameron and Marci, that is irreversible and has severe consequences."

Aiello hid behind a tree as he shouted out, "You held a knife to my son's throat. He was only four-years-old and you tried to kill him!" Anger filled his voice. "You can still survive to live another day. That is how the Moral Ones operate, we give you guys a chance. Even after all the pain, you've caused us."

"Sorry, but I am not one who backs down that easily." He and Martin begin walking down a steep hill, following the tracks that Aiello left in the snow. "You are going to die from either the zombies or us. Either way, it's going to be a painful death!"

A gunshot rang out. Carmine and Martin tried to look for the source. Hearing something behind them, they turn and see an avalanche falling towards them. A thirty-foot tall avalanche came at them like a bullet. Carmine dives to the side and barely avoids getting crushed by the snow. Martin, on the other hand, had the opposite outcome.

"That was a good plan Aiello, I will give you that," the bandit leader cheers dryly.

"It's just you, Carmine. Your little group of bandits is nothing now, so just walk away!" Aiello's voice echoed throughout the mountains.

"How about you come out to kill me and then we will talk about it?" Carmine cocks his firearm before a body slams into his from the side, knocking him off his feet and losing his gun in the process.

Aiello punches Carmine endlessly, not showing any mercy. "You almost cost my son his life. I saw you, I saw you put the blade to his throat." He begins choking Carmine. "I saw the glint in your eyes even from a distance. You wanted to kill that innocent child and you wanted to kill everyone at camp. I've encountered brutal survivors before but I am not going to let this crime go unanswered, one way or another." He takes his hands back from his Carmine's throat. "I am not going to turn into a monster like you. I am not going to kill you in cold blood, but I will make sure you pay for your crimes."

A loud roar was heard. Aiello nearly jumped out of his skin and looked around. He knew that sound. Growing up in the wilderness, he can always tell which sounds belong to which animals and that roar were a sound that belonged to a polar bear.

"As a matter of fact, this is your punishment, Carmine. I won't save you from getting mauled by a bear." He gets up to his feet and makes a run for it. He heard the sound of a bear growling and the dying sounds of Carmine.

* * *

_Day 3_

_A day later, the four family members and two criminals walk together back to the city, taking extreme caution. There are reports in downtown. _


	3. Issue 3

_Day 3_

_A mysterious illness spreads like a wildfire and people are being urged to stay inside their houses. A whole cruise line of police vehicles makes a beeline to the center of Vancouver to deal with a riot. Aiello and Atticus attempt to go their way as the family regroups safely at home, but find themselves unable to leave, believing it to be much safer with the group. Atticus stays, but Aiello leaves. Just as Aiello argues on why he should leave, a zombie walks into the home, unnoticed by any of them. Aiello is just a mile away from the family home after walking away but stops and turns around to return. _

* * *

Day 4,607

Aiello looked over his shoulder to see if he could see any threat. Any zombies he saw, he either killed or dodged. When he heard the bear that tore Carmine apart roar, he picked up the pace, this time dodging every single undead he came across.

He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was getting closer and closer to him. He jumps down a hill, landing on his feet like a cat before he raises his rifle and took aim at the bear's head. Using his amazing marksman skills, he shoots the bear in the left eye, partially blinding the carnivore. He knew he could not outrun the creature, but he could outwit it and the look on the bear's face told him that he should be 'loaded for bear'.

He rolls out the way just as the bear strikes him. He was almost bitten by a zombie that snuck on him, but he blasted it in the head. He turns around and shoots the bear in the right eye, blinding it completely. More zombies began to surround him and the bear coming at him made the situation worse.

After taking out the dead, he fires one round into the bear's skull just as it was about to lash its claws at him. Aiello smacks the butt of his rifle into a zombie's skull, bashing its brains in.

A zombie snuck up on Aiello, but he moved out of the way and the zombie was caught in the bear's grip and torn apart. Knowing that the zombie virus will have no effects on animals and he just practically gave the bear a chew toy, he ran like hell to get out of there before the bear chased him down using his senses.

He slides down a snowy hill and when he hit bottom, he sprinted across a frozen lake. When he felt losing his balance, he immediately felt his feet slide across the ice. He could tell thick ice from thin ice and he was sliding on thick ice.

As soon as he was on the other side of the frozen lake, he stopped to catch his breath. He first scanned the area in front of him for any threats before turning back to see the bear and several other zombies slide down the snowy hill. The bear was the first to cross the lake, but its weight was unable to be supported by the ice. It collapsed as soon as its first paw stepped onto the ice.

It sank into the icy water with the zombies. Aiello sighs in relief and looks down at his reflection in the ice. His mission was over. His mission for justice was over and it was time for him to return to the one thing he stayed behind for, his family. He knows their current location, their old campsite back in Vancouver. He could not wait to see his family.

His wife.

His son.

His best friend.

His entire group he considered family.

He knew that traveling by car from Fairbanks to Vancouver was the best way. All he had to do was look for some kind of transportation. That was all he needed to do. He didn't need to look for fuel or anything else. He knew exactly how to start a car with no keys and he knew how to fix batteries, rotted tires and ride horses.

Aiello follows a path, knowing that it leads somewhere, but he has no idea where. But following a path is good, because it leads somewhere at least. "Time to get the fuck out of here," he mutters, "Erik, Mila, Kevin, I am on my way home."

After following the path for the better part of a half-hour, zombies began to swarm him. He decided to save the blades and the bullets. He began thinking about how zombies outnumber humans five thousand to one and how more and more people begin dying and dying as the days went by. The zombies weren't the only things killing the living. The living killed the living, even more so than the zombies. Aiello has encountered adversaries before the bandits. He faced soldiers, who all ended up dead. He met a group of roadside bandits, who shared the same fate. He even met a group of fanatical cultists.

It's amazing how people can turn from good to bad in an instant or bad to worse. When the chips are down, these once humane people and even inhumane people, they show their true colors and their truly darkest sides.

Aiello vowed to never walk down that road. He believed that keeping their humanity alive within themselves was the most important thing in this world. There had to be something besides surviving and killing zombies daily. There had to be something worth living for because without oral codes, who are we?

That is why he founded the Moral Ones. There is a line in the sand that the Moral Ones will never cross. Aiello will not become an immoral being no matter what. He has never turned into a cold-blooded killer focused only on survival because he had a son and he was four years old. What a parent does in front of their four-year-old child will influence them for the rest of their life. He did not want that for little Erik.

Erik is the future of this world.

Aiello's stamina was to be matched, but even he needed to sit down at one point or another. Aiello sits up against the tree with the slow-moving zombies coming in from a long distance. He had a good recovery time. All he had to do was rest for thirty seconds and then he should be on his way.

His father worked on the track. He was a railway track worker, meaning that he installed train tracks and jobs like that require a lot of physical labor. His father had to be in the good physical condition and since he was, he exercised with Aiello so he can be in peak physical condition and as a result, he has a chance at surviving this world.

Just as he gets up, he hears something behind him. A branch snaps and he snaps his body around to investigate. What he saw surprised him. It was what he called a 'Tally' which was a tall zombie that towered over a survivor of average height. There was nothing wrong with the zombie, just the person who died was extremely tall and the zombie in front of him was about six-eleven.

Aiello jerks his head back as the Tally punches him. He jams his rifle into the Tally's chest and fires, blowing up its heart. It stumbles back and he aims at the head and fires. The Tally was dropped instantly and Aiello used this moment to run away from the zombies that were attracted to the loud sound of the firearm.

Several minutes later, he stumbled upon a gas station filled with cars covered by snow. He makes way for one of the cars and cleans the snow off of it. It was not going to work. Even if he got it working, he was not going to be able to drive in the deep snow.

He looks around the gas station several more times before he stumbled upon a nearby garage. He was about to open it until he saw a lock on the garage handle. He identified it as a PJB lock. All that was needed was a stomp.

He stomps on the lock, breaking it instantly, shattering it under his feet. He opens the garage to find himself in a warm environmental garage. In the middle of the garage, was a dead man lying against a snowmobile and it looked like the man was bitten on the shoulder and became a zombie but was playing dead until Aiello finally opened up the garage door. Aiello paid his respects, despite not knowing the man and he put the man out of his mercy before turned back to the snowmobile. Judging from the skin patches on his recent zombie kill, he deduced that this man waited himself out on purpose no longer than a week ago and he hid in the garage so he wouldn't eat anybody when he turned.

He found fuel and the keys needed for the snowmobile and proved his theory that the man was only dead for a week was proven true. He quickly fills the snowmobile up and jumps on to start up the snowmobile, making sure both his weapons were loaded and his knives weren't going to poke him in the side. Before he boarded the vehicle, he wrote on the outside of the wall with his permanent marker, 'The Moral Ones'.

"I'm on my way son." He drives off on the snowmobile.

Aiello spent the next several hours traveling from city to city to try and get to his family. Every time he ends up closer to his destination, there would always be something interrupting him. He had no idea why.

When he arrived seventy miles away from the border the next day, he was encountered by a massive herd of zombies on the freeway. He already ditched his snowmobile when he left the snowy lands, so now he was using whatever kind of transport he could use.

Right now, he was walking on the freeway and that is when he met the herd. He was easily outnumbered three hundred to one.

He sneaks past the zombies by going underground in the sewers and coming out on the other side and continued with his quest to get back home.

When he made it fifty miles out on foot, he found a working motorcycle at an auto shop and used to drive off. Just as he was twenty miles away, he was met by a group of survivors who usually block new people from traveling to the border for some reason, most likely for security reasons (the government was completely dead after all).

"Hey there," Aiello said to the lead man, "I am just trying to get back home to my family. I promise you and everyone else and I am a man who never breaks his promise."

"How can I trust you?" the lead man responded asked in suspicion, "You could be a bandit for all I know."

"I hate bandits. I came back from Fairbanks after killing bandits. I killed them because they threatened my son's life. They held a knife to my son's throat. I already made all seven of them pay."

The lead man turned to another man and spoke. Aiello could not hear the conversation, but he was so sure that the man was talking to him about letting him pass, or so he hoped.

The lead man turned around and told him that once he crosses the border into Canada, then to keep his guard up.

"Why? I can take care of myself around zombies."

"Not the dead, robbers. Since you are entering Canada, then I must warn you about the large group of robbers that inhabit the border. I have no idea of their current location, but I know they are armed and dangerous. They are like us, border guards. However, instead of just guarding, they rob people of all their food, supplies, clothes and medicine before letting them enter or leave the country. If they catch any trespassers, they will shoot them on sight."

Aiello took his warning. "I will keep that in mind, but if I have to give up all my survival equipment to see my son, then so be it."

"Just watch yourself out there, don't die."

"Moral Ones never die," Aiello vowed before he was let to move on to cross the border. "Good luck to you gentlemen as well." He waved goodbye to them. Before he left, he wrote Moral Ones on one of the checkpoints.

Just as he arrived in ten miles out, he looked around for any robbers as he closed in on the border.

Pretty soon, he was going to be in Canada in less than one hour and then he would meet the robbers at the border. Aiello had been wondering what the deal was with these robbers. He speculated that due to their name, they were most likely robbers even before the end of their world happened. He even bet some of them used to be bank robbers but whatever they were before the apocalypse is irrelevant.

Hopefully, he won't have to meet the robbers, because he did not want to kill any of them. He knew that if he were to sneak into the city, then by ginger he was most certainly a walking bull's eye.

Aiello hops off his bike to check an empty pharmacy for any medicine to put in his backpack. He was surprised, yet disappointed to find nothing inside. But he did find a group of zombies in pharmacy uniforms that chased after him.

Not wasting any bullets, he takes out his knife and kills the four zombies. He checks them for whatever he could find and found a key on one of them and a note. The note was written by the pharmacists before he turned and it told him about a whole stash of food and medicine in the large safe in the back of the room. This key unlocked that safe.

Taking his chances, he goes to the back of the room, finds a massive bank-like safe and opens it with the key by shoving it into the keyhole. As the doctor said, there was a lot of canned food and medicine inside. More than enough for Aiello to carry. Enough to feed a small town for at least three years. Following his moral code, he takes as much food and medicine that his backpack could fit and leaves the rest for others.

He takes out the sharpie from one of his cargo pants pockets and writes on the safe after he closes it. 'Food and medicine inside. I took about twenty-five percent. I hope you guys make it out there. Good luck. The key is on one of the dead zombies.'

He puts the key back on the zombie he took it off on and walked out of the pharmacy.

Just as he stepped out, he heard screaming coming from the streets. A terrified man wearing rotting clothes ran from a zombie, but it caught up to him and nearly bit him on the shoulder. Aiello takes out his knife and throws the blade at the zombie's head, piercing its brain and killing it.

The man falls to the ground, clutching his shoulder as if there was a wound there. Aiello drops his backpack to go help him, despite knowing that the man was healthy and there was no reason to get all hysterical but for whatever reason that this zombie virus exists, precautions must be taken.

"Thank you," the man said gratefully as Aiello checked his shoulder for any bites and body for other kinds of wounds. I honestly cannot thank you enough for saving my life." He looks down at his shoulder and sighs in relief as his nightmare was finally over. "Is there any way I can repay you?" Aiello said that the only way he can repay him is that he will live to see another day. Aiello told him about the food and medicine and bid him farewell as he got on his motorcycle and drove off. Even in the apocalypse, there are still good people. Aiello Korell was a prime example.

Before he left, he wrote the Moral Ones on the store. Just like he did in Fairbanks and on one of those checkpoints. He always writes where the Moral Ones were so their reputation can spread among survivors and inspire people to not lose their humanity and retain some kind of morality.

* * *

_Day 3_

_As Aiello arrives back, he finds that the zombie that entered the home is attacking Mila and he saves her life. Aiello admits as to why he was imprisoned and why he saved her life, he was convicted of a triple homicide and that he is starting to have feelings for Mila. She slaps him and backs away from him, heartbreaking him. Evan admits to Aiello and Atticus that if they are going to stay with them, then they are to follow their rules and that they will never put any of them in danger. Aiello and Atticus both agree and start boarding up the walls to keep out the dead._


	4. Issue 4

_Day 4_

_They're barring up, Aiello spots a group of teenagers outside, being attacked. He quickly heads out the door to save them, successful in rescuing two of them, Keith and Kevin, however, Keith reveals himself to be bitten. As Aiello examines the bite wound on his shoulder, Atticus takes a hammer and swings it against Keith's head to prevent him from reanimating. Tensions rise between Aiello, Evan, Atticus, and Kevin as they all sit down to eat food and watch the news. There is rioting all across the country. The seven of them turn in for the night, several police officers break into the home and take every single survivor inside into custody._

* * *

Day 4,612

Pretty soon, when he was on the highway leading to the border to Canada. He met another herd of zombies. His motorcycle ran out of fuel anyway and he decides to do the same thing as before. He entered through the sewer systems, once again dodging another bullet.

He walked for several minutes directly underneath the herd before he found another manhole. He was about to climb out of the manhole until he saw light coming in from a flood drain. Curiously to see what Canada now looks like, he takes a peek outside.

He sees a city of debris with nature overgrowing some parts of the city. He sees a couple running away from something while one of them was clutching their stomach. Gunshots and bullets sprayed their way and the couple was dropped to the ground, dying instantly.

Aiello sees three more people running towards the corpses while dressed in leather jackets and cargo pants. They were armed with automatic rifles like M4s and AKs. Aiello knew these three people were robbers.

The oldest one of the trio bent down to loot the two corpses while the black one and bald one took watch.

"Hiro, loot that one," the leader ordered, The bald one named Hiro looted the male corpse. "James, keep a lookout for any other trespassers."

"Roger that," James nodded. "Jeremy, how do you think these guys got into the city without us knowing about it?"

"All I can think of is the sewer system. We got to set up some guards down there just in case."

"But if we do that, then that means the chances of having a trespasser are less likely and we wouldn't have as much fun as we are right now."

From hearing these words, Aiello knew that the robbers wanted trespassers so they could kill people. They may be survivors, but they are psychopaths in nature.

"These guys got nothing. Let's regroup with Andrew, Freddy, Lee, Sal, and Chris," Jeremy considers, "Let's go." The three robbers walked into the city and out of view.

Aiello crept away from the flood drain, suddenly feeling claustrophobic. He knew he had to escape the city, it was too late to not be an intruder. He was in their territory, the lion's den.

He puts away the image of the dead people and continues to follow the path down the sewers.

When he came to another manhole, he looks through the drain to check for any robbers. He crawls out of the sewers and into the ruined city of the unnamed Canadian city. Cars were piled up and plants were growing in places you never expected to grow, like in the street. Aiello had been told as a kid if humanity were to stop fighting off mother nature, then mother nature will take over pretty much every place it can get its weeds on.

This city was an example, but the robbers appeared to be fighting off nature.

Aiello chambers his gun quietly, making sure not to draw the attention of any nearby threat. The first rule of scavenging: Anything can be useful.

Aiello was walking downtown, following a small crowd of zombies. He saw that the zombie leading the group was wearing a police uniform. Usually, Aiello liked to call whoever leads a zombie horde the 'Brawns'. He noted that Brawn zombies tend to be the primary catalyst of a horde forming and that he is the one who usually sets off the mob mentality. Granted, they are just regular zombies, he thinks of them as something more.

Just as the zombie group turned around, Aiello dived for the nearby alley, hiding behind a dumpster. He waits patiently for the group to leave before he sighed and looked around. He heard the familiar sound of a gun being cocked and he could practically sense a barrel aimed at his back.

"Don't move. Turn around slowly," a voice threatened behind Aiello. He did as he was told and turned around very slowly. He saw a young man with dark hair and light skin aiming a handgun at him. Behind him were four others. "Put your rifle on the ground and kick it towards us."

Aiello did as he was told. "A pistol is better than my rifle. Let me keep it, I need it to survive."

"We need it more you, robber."

Aiello sported a confused look. "I am not a robber. I just came into the city through the sewers, honest."

The survivor didn't buy it. Aiello knew these guys were not robbers, trespassers like he was. The female behind him walked up towards Aiello and dragged his Ruger 30 away. "You think we're stupid or something?" she asks.

Aiello notes how she has chocolate brown hair and spoke with a Brooklyn accent like Carmine. "You sound like you have the intellect of a seven-year-old."

A male survivor with the orange hair that fell to his shoulder walked up and frisked Aiello. "You don't look so tough," he spoke.

"I am so tough, I can take you all down in one strike," The oranged haired survivor appeared to be amused because he was smiling. He throws a punch at Aiello, but it was deflected easily. He tries to punch him once more, but his blow was blocked by his forearm. Aiello sweeps the orange-haired survivor off his feet before he could even react.

Aiello held the orange-haired survivor in a chokehold and using him as a human shield against the one who was drawing a gun at him.

"Let Vincent go," the pistol survivor demanded.

"I'll let Vincent go once you hand me my Ruger 30 back," Aiello demanded, ready to kill the survivor in his hand if necessary. "And let me walk away. I will not hurt you or anything else, I will just find my way out of the city and I will be out of your hair forever."

The girl with Aiello's rifle aimed it at his head. "You're lying. We let you go and you will go back to your robber friends and warn them about us."

"I am not a robber," Aiello tried to tell once again.

"What the fuck!"

Aiello looked around and saw eight robbers staring at them in shock. They open fire at them.

Aiello saves Vincent by pushing him through a window leading into an apartment. Aiello dives in after him through the window.

The other survivors ran into the building and hide wherever they could go. Vincent and Aiello hide behind a stove just as the eight robbers broke their way inside the apartment.

"We have trespassers inside the building." Aiello recognized that voice. It belonged to Jeremy. "Hunt them down and kill them. No exception."

Aiello crawled through a hole in the wall and was followed by Vincent. They met with the other survivors on the other side.

"How can we trust that you are not one of them?" the one with the pistol asked as he pressed his back to the wall.

"If I was one of them, then I would have yelled at them where you guys were, but I didn't. I am just a survivor just like you guys are. We are all in the same boat so we all might as well fix the leak before any more damage is brought to us."

The survivors believed him this time and, they saw how he saved Vincent's life. "Abby, give the man his gun back."

Abby gives the Ruger 30 back to Aiello. He introduces himself. "I already met Vincent and I just learned your name is Abby, so you guys got names?"

The lean and tall one introduced himself as Oliver and the second girl of the group, who had white-blonde hair identified herself as Sadie.

"And I'm Tai. We have another one with us, his name's Luis."

"How old are you guys, you look to be quite young?"

"We're all in our early twenties. I'm in my mid-forties. You?"

"Me, twenty-nine. What are you guys doing in a city like this? You should be with your families."

"We all lost our families when the outbreak started," Abby answered. "We tried to look for a haven in this city, but the plan backfired on us."

"Guys, I am part of a group of survivors. You guys are more than welcome to join us. We're called the Moral Ones, we're based in Vancouver currently. If you guys can follow me, I will take you guys to a haven, we will find a place for you and the others. So what do you say, you want to become a Moral One?"

They all accepted the answer.

"Now, all we have to do is find Luis and then all seven of us can get out of this freaking city. But first, we have to deal with these guys."

"Even if we take out these guys and regroup with Luis, how are we going to escape the city? Through the sewers? We already tried, the robbers have already put up defenses on the sewers at the main door. Every single exit into and out of the city is blocked off by cars and those cars are monitored by those robbers."

"We'll find a way. Adaptability is the key to surviving this world," Aiello reasoned. "One way or another, we are getting out of this hellhole because I have a son in Vancouver and I made a promise to return home to him. No matter what."

"How old?" Tai asked.

"Four."

"You for reals have a son?"

"Of course. I used to be a murder but I am now a husband and she is my wife." Aiello looked through the hole to see where the eight robbers were. Not a single one of them was in sight. "Where's Luis, because I don't want to do any unnecessary double backing?"

"He's in this building, on the eighth floor," Sadie answered. "He holed up in room 8133, we gotta save him quickly."

"Well then, by all means, let's go get him and then find a way to sneak past these goons."

Aiello walked in the opposite direction of the hole and up a flight of stairs. He knew better than to take an elevator, the robbers could easily set traps or they could plunge to their death.

"You guys stay close to me. You do what I say when I say, you got it?"

The others got the picture.

"Okay, now I am a survivor, I know how to deal with people like these. Immoral people who don't give a damn about killing people."

Several floors above, Jeremy and his gang of robbers already reached the eighth floor and were waiting for the survivors to come up so they can ambush them. They had two robbers guarding the main flight of stairs with the others guarding each other.

"Lee, Sal, keep a close eye out for them," Jeremy ordered again, "Jame, Hiro, you two act as backup. Anything happens, you take over."

"What of us sir?" Andrew asked.

"You, Chris and Freddy will stay here and arm yourselves with molotovs just in case." Jeremy tucked his pistol away and grabbed a bottle filled with vodka from a desk. "Take this and turn them into cocktails."

He tossed them three more bottles filled with alcohol. They turned them into Molotov cocktails.

Aiello climbed up the ladder of the elevator shaft with the others below him. He knew better than to take the stairs, but he also knew that the best way to get the drop on someone was to climb the one place no one would ever expect.

He looked down into the darkness. The ground was exactly seven stories below. A fall from this height was a death sentence.

Reaching the eighth floor, he climbs with caution through the open elevator door and sees the backs of the eight robbers. They were aiming at the stairs, and not at the elevator. Even though they could have easily climbed another floor through the elevator shaft, Aiello decided to just take out his adversaries since they have the drop on them.

The closet one to the open elevator door was Freddy. He had his rifle shouldered and his right hand holding a lit up Molotov.

Aiello sneaks up to Freddy and chokes him. He yanked the Molotov out of his hand and throws him towards the open elevator.

His screams as he plunged to his death alerted the robbers, but when they turned around, a Molotov was thrown at them.

* * *

_Day 18_

_Two weeks after being held in custody, the disease spreads all Quebec, infecting thousands of people, reanimating them. The military and police have set up guards at the border to ensure that the infection does not spread. The family is being kept in one room, the teenager in another, and the two criminals in another. The military and police are experimenting on their enemies, trying to determine how this virus works. Aiello watches in horror as an escaped prisoner from the prison is shot dead and tossed over the edge and left to reanimate in a grinder. Aiello is horrified to learn that Garrick, the police chief, plans to grind them into meat._


	5. Issue 5

_Day 18_

_They desperately plea to change his mind. He asks where the others are and Garrick shrugs off his questions. However, in a shocking twist, Kevin is brought into the room and placed next to Aiello and Atticus. Kevin tells the two convicts that Evan and his family are being treated with kindness and no harm has come to them. With Evan and his family, a military sergeant named Ramez plans on setting the family of four free, until Evan pleads with Ramez to release Aiello, Atticus, and Kevin with them. This seems to enrage Ramez, who grabs Evan by the shoulder and throws him into the incinerator. The three survivors then take action._

* * *

Day 4,612

The Molotov landed near Jeremy's leg and it shattered upon impact, spreading fires. His leg caught fire and he backed away into the others, desperate to get the fires out.

Aiello threw his knife at Andrew just as he was about to throw the Molotov. The bottle broke in his hands and he caught fire and burned to death.

The others climbed up just to see Aiello start battling the six robbers. They climbed through the open elevator door and took cover.

Aiello takes out his Beretta 92FS and shoots Sal in the head, killing her instantly. The four robbers open fired at Aiello while Jeremy focused on putting out the fire on his left pant leg.

Aiello took cover behind a soda machine as bullets flew his way. Tai steps up and shoots Chris in the stomach, wounding him before he took cover again. Aiello waits to hear the sound of a gun click from any of the robbers' gun before he jumps out of cover and lands on his back. It was like in slow motion. He aims his gun at Christ and finishes him off with a gunshot to the head.

The four robbers ran for the stairs they were guarding. Instead of running down, they run upwards.

Aiello successfully shot Hiro in the back just as he disappeared up the stairs. His body went tumbling down the stairs.

"Let's go get them!" Tai shouted.

"No, we came up here for Luis. We die, then all of this is for nothing," Aiello persuaded, "You guys go find him while I go find out the rest of these robbers and stop them from killing us."

"Are you sure?" Abby asked.

"The man seems capable enough of taking care of himself," Vincent argued for Aiello.

"Vince, man, he's not a man, he's a kid like us," Oliver told. "He may be of age but he still has the mentality of a risky teenager."

"You see the way he took out those robbers? He doesn't need us."

"We need him though," Sadie said, "We need him if we want to escape the city with our lives."

"Just go, I'll catch up with you guys." Aiello walked forward, "Go save your friend and I will save all of us." Before any of the survivors could answer, he jogged up the stairs.

"Wait, Aiello, your knife." Sadie removed his knife from the wall. He turns and catches it as Sadie throws it at him. "Good luck."

He unshoulders his Ruger 30 and aims down the hallway of the ninth floor. The last three robbers were hiding, and they wouldn't be hiding for very long. Aiello had amazingly keen senses that always saved his life.

Jeremy was hiding underneath a bed with a shotgun beside him. James hid in a closet while crouched down. He held a Desert Eagle up to his head and waited for Aiello to strike. The only one who was not in the deserted room was Lee, who stood outside and hiding behind an overturned couch.

Aiello fired a bullet from his Ruger 30 into the overturned couch. Blood splattered against the wall and a hand dropped into sight along with the loud sound of a thump. He sensed one of the robbers hiding behind the couch and he did not want to give the robber a chance to strike first.

Just as he took a step forward, Jame came charging out of one of the rooms and at Aiello. He chambers his rifle and shoots James in the chest, but he did not go down. He chambers his gun again and prepares to shoot, but James threw a punch at Aiello. He jerks his head back in time and strikes James in the jaw with the barrel of the rifle. He then ended James's life by striking him as hard as he could in the throat with his fist, crushing his windpipe.

He falls for the last time.

A bullet almost hit Aiello in the head, but it missed by an inch. Aiello looks to see Jeremy at the end of the hallway with his gun empty. He rushed Aiello. He fired, but his rifle jammed on him.

Jeremy tackled Aiello to the ground and knocked his gun away.

A zombie came out from one of the rooms and snarled as it walked towards the two wrestlers.

Aiello grabs Jeremy's jaw and begins squeezing the life out of him. Jeremy pulled out a knife and plunged it towards Aiello. He catches it with his free hand and pushes it away.

The zombie falls upon Jeremy and takes a chunk out the back of his neck. He yelps in pain before being kicked off by Aiello and landing on his back. He reaches for his Ruger 30, pulls the bolt back, unjamming the gun before he aims it at Jeremy's head. Before Jeremy could see the barrel, a bullet lodged into his skull.

The zombie drops to his knees and makes a satisfying meal out of Jeremy's corpse.

With only one bullet left, Aiello decides not to waste it on the zombie. He walks down the stairs and lets the zombie be.

"I may have taken out these robbers, but the city is still filled with them." When he was down the stairs, the fires had started spreading up the wall, but he ignored them. "This building can burn for all I care."

He avoided the fire and burning corpse. When he walked down the hallway that he knew that Tai and his group followed, he saw them nowhere in sight. He did see a shadow on the wall at the far end of the hallway. It was a human and given by his silhouette, he was armed with a gun.

Aiello aims his pistol and prepares to fire. The first robber that walked into the crosshairs, he shot in the skull. He heard someone shouting before another robber ran out and open fired at Aiello. This proved to be vain because he got shot in the chest and collapsed in a puddle of his blood.

Aiello ran forward as he heard several footsteps behind him. He knew they weren't human, they were infected because of the growling he vaguely heard. Aiello turned down the right of the hallway, stepping over the two robbers' corpses and he crashed into another robber and they both fell to the ground.

Aiello kicks the robber in the skull before he gets up and runs away. The zombies tumbled down onto the robber.

Aiello was now being chased by more zombies. He performs parkour skills to jump over furniture, debris, and anything that slowed him down. After jumping over a couch, a herd of zombies appears at the end of the hallway. Instead of retreating, he charges into all of them like a football player and they tumble down to the ground like dominos.

"Aiello, over here!" Tai shouted at the end of the hallway. "In here!"

Aiello sprinted just as the zombies were on him. Tai runs through a door and closes it as soon as Aiello was in the room. He does not bend down to catch his breath. "Tai, Abby, Oliver, Sadie, Vincent, and I assume you are Luis." He shakes hands with a Latino teenager. "I'm Aiello, I'm the leader of the Moral Ones, a group of survivors whose main goal is to keep the morality within people."

"Never heard of the Moral Ones," Luis said, "Tai, you sure we can trust this guy?"

"Yes, he saved us from robbers. He saved Vincent from being blasted. How many people can be trusted nowadays?"

Aiello walked in between Luis and Tai. "I have a group, you guys will be safe with us because Moral Ones never leave people to die, if they can help it."

"We'll join your Moral One's group. All of us. Right, Luis?"

"Right."

"All right then, but before we go, we have to find a way out this building and fast because-" A pound on the door silenced Aiello. "There are zombies outside the door and the building has caught fire."

"If we move across the rooftops, then we can get our bearings and be less likely to be spotted by the robbers down below," Oliver suggested. "Before we got here, Luis discovered a fire escape that leads to the roof and there are always emergency hatches on the roof."

The pounding on the door and growling increased rapidly.

"That's a chance we are going to have to take." Aiello headed for the nearest window. He shatters the window with his fist and looks outside. "Don't look down."

He climbed through the window and out onto the fire escape. It wobbled under his feet, but it did not fall. Luckily for him, Aiello had good balance. "It's safe, but let's take this one at a time."

Aiello climbed to the top of the rooftop before telling the others to climb up one at a time.

When they were on the roof and the ground was fifteen stories below, they gazed at the amazing view in the distant.

"See that ladies and gents? That is an amazing view." He leaned against the railing, relaxing. In the distance, he saw a skyline of some kind. "It is impossible to not love that view."

"Yeah," Tai agreed, "We can hardly see something like this. Even though we are staring at a wasteland, we still have a good view."

Aiello looked below him and saw the herd of zombies in the street from earlier. They looked like little ants from this height. He then to see the entrances and exits into the city. Every single one in the distance had half a dozen guards but the most heavily guarded one was the main entrance.

An idea popped into Aiello's head. If they capture a robber as a hostage, then they could negotiate on getting a car and getting out of the city with their lives. "If we want to get out of this hellhole, then we're going to need a robber and a gun to his head. And a car."

"Why?"

"Tai, we are going to use a robber as a hostage. It would be better if we caught a sergeant or high ranking member. Surely these guys have to have some kind of leader."

Aiello stepped away from the railing and looked to his right. There was a ladder that leads down and into another alley. Aiello climbs down first and waits for the others to get down before they start moving.

"Before we move any further, I have to do something." Aiello took out his sharpie and wrote Moral Ones on the nearest wall. "I do this to symbolize that the Moral Ones have been everywhere. All I have to do is write this on at least one wall. Morality is everywhere, there is still some morality within all of us."

"Boss, look what I found," a robber called out as he walked into view. Aiello saw two robbers before they saw them. He charges just before the two robbers could get a proper look at them.

The young one was punched in the nose and knocked out instantly. The other one looked to be older and he pulled his gun. Aiello grabbed his wrist and twisted it, forcing him to drop the pistol and enabling him to put him in a chokehold. "Where you going, we need a robber?"

"Fuck you, man," the robber spat. "I ain't going to give you any satisfaction. My men will wonder where I am and they will kill you."

"Why, you the leader of the robbers or something?" Aiello asked half-sarcastic. Tai and his group aimed their guns at the robber.

"Yes, my name is Jonathan. I am the leader of the robbers. You should be afraid of me trespasser."

"My name is Aiello, and I may be a trespasser, but I am also a husband and a father. You are going to help me get out of this city so I can see my wife and son. Understand? Refusal to cooperate will not end well for you." He was not going to kill him in cold blood, but he was going to instill fear in the lead robber.

Even if Jonathan refused, his men would not risk shooting their leader. Their boss must have some loyalty and respect for his men.

"Aiello, what do we do about the robber you knocked out?"

"Take him as well. He can be used as leverage. A hostage for a car and a hostage for guaranteed safety. Remember, it's either them or us. And these guys won't hesitate to kill innocent people. You should have seen the people these three robbers slaughtered in cold blood."

"We slaughter people to survive," Jonathan justified, "I'm sure you've killed people to survive. You must have given the way you are talking to me."

"I've killed to survive, but I've never slaughtered innocent people."

Tai ran up to Jonathan and smacked him in the forehead with his handgun, knocking the man unconscious.

"Thank you. I could have done that though." Aiello relaxed his grip on Jonathan's throat, allowing him to breathe. "Let's go make a trade. Grab his buddy."

* * *

_Day 18_

_Tanya, Ryan, and Mila shove Ramez into the wall before throwing him into the incinerator. In the other rooms, Aiello strikes Garrick in the leg and attacks him brutally. Atticus and Kevin were then allowed to attack the other soldiers in the room and kill them before they killed them. However, in the ensuing battle, Kevin is shot in the stomach and wounded badly. Atticus argues that Kevin should be left behind, but Aiello strongly believes that they should save him and get him as far away as they could from the military base. Atticus complies and helps Aiello carry him out. They reunite with the family and save the others and escape._


	6. Issue 6

_Day 18_

_The family and the prisoners drive off and back to their neighborhood. The military and police forces there have been overrun by zombies. The group sneaks back into their home to retrieve supplies and stuff needed to survive out there while nursing Kevin back to health. They sit down at their table and begin discussing what their next plans are. They turn on the radio and they hear of evacuations taking place at Camp Murray at Victoria on Vancouver Island. After some reasoning, the family eventually decides to travel there together and start packing up. They begin their journey from British Columbia to Victoria, prepared for whatever threat they face, living or dead._

* * *

At the main checkpoint, the six robbers stood guard at the border into the city. One of the robbers was armed with a light machine gun while the others were armed with melee weapons. Another robber had a sniper rifle and took a position on top of an eighteen-wheeler parked near the robbers.

"Man, I am just praying for someone to trespass us," the sniper said, "I am waiting for a zombie to walk into my crosshairs so I can shoot the brains out of them."

"Save your bullets," the machine gunner ordered, "If it's a zombie, then we can wait for it to come towards us and then we can kill it with our melee weapons."

The robber held a chainsaw as his weapon set it down at his feet and smoked a cigarette. He turned to a robber armed with a sledgehammer. "You want one?"

"Got any menthols?"

The robber pulled out another pack of cigarettes. "Take all of them, I was saving them for you anyways."

"When's our shift over?"

"It'll be soon man," a robber armed with an ax said.

"Was I talking to you?"

"No, but I was answering you."

"This sounds like a conflict," Sniper smirked, "Something I can watch."

"You shut your mouth," Sledgehammer berated. He placed a menthol in his mouth and turned to the flamethrower robber. "Can you do the honors?"

The flamethrower robber held the barrel of his M2 up to the tip of the cigarette, lighting in for Sledgehammer. "You welcome by the way."

"No need to thank you. All you did was nothing basically. If you save my life, then I will thank you."

A zombie moved towards from outside the border. "I got it, boys," Chainsaw said. He starts up his weapon and dons his goggles and a mask. Now if any infected blood gets in his face, it won't get into his eyes and he won't be infected. He decapitated the infected and kicked its body to the side.

"Now that is how you do it."

Jonathan and the other captured robber named Jack had their hands tied behind their backs and being pushed forward towards the city border by Aiello and his allies. They walked slowly to the checkpoint with the six guarded robbers.

"You will never win. Do you hear me, Aiello? You will never win, my men and I will not let you. Even if it costs us all our lives, you will not win," Jack grunted.

"You are prepared to sacrifice the lives of your friends?" Aiello sounded disappointed. "You are not worthy of becoming a leader."

"Jack, we don't sacrifice men. People are not a dime a dozen nowadays," Jonathan told, "We can't win them all, so there is no use in unnecessary sacrifices."

"Shut up brother. I'd make a better leader than you would ever be."

Aiello just found out the two men were brothers. He now realized they had more leverage than ever. He had both leaders in their grasps.

Aiello and his allies and hostages approached the checkpoint with caution. It was when the six robbers noticed them, they began shouting. Only three of them were armed with firearms while the others were armed with melee weapons.

"Don't fucking fire!" Aiello ordered. "We have your two leaders in our possession. No harm will come to either of them if you do as we say."

Jonathan held up a hand, signaling for them to stand down and do whatever the man says. "This guy's on edge. He and his friends, do exactly what they say."

"Thanks, Jon, now step one of our deals. We want you guys to give us a vehicle so we can get out of this hellhole," Aiello demanded. "Second, I want weapons. Third, I want you guys to stop killing people, this is not right."

"You don't get to make that decision," Jack said. "We will still kill, even when you are gone. We have to survive somehow."

"There has to be something more than surviving. You have to live."

"If we let you go, how do we know you won't come back and kill all us robbers?" Jack asked, trying to spark a fire between the two groups.

Aiello made the right choice not to answer.

"Guys, get a car for this man and he will let my brother go first," Jonathan begged to the robbers in desperation. "I just gave a command and now you must follow it."

Having total control over his robbers, the sledgehammer and flamethrower robber went into the city to secure a working car big enough to fit all seven people. They brought back a sports utility vehicle.

"Now like I said, I will give one person up for every deal you guys fill in." Aiello ordered for Tai to release Jack. He shoves him forward and towards the crowd of robbers. Not taking any chances, Aiello and his allies walk towards the SUV parked outside the border and they climb in.

Aiello still held Jonathan at gunpoint and ordered for them not to shoot any weapons at the group as they drive away.

Despite that however, Jack refused to back down. "Don't listen to a single word this guy says. He is going to slit our throats in our sleep."

"No!" Aiello protested. "I am never coming back here. You will never see my face again, I promise. I will never cross paths with your robbers ever again."

The sniper on top of the truck aimed his rifle at Aiello. He lines his crosshairs up to Aiello's head, just several inches above Jonathan's shoulder.

"Jack, just for once listen to me," Jonathan begged. "I want to live to see another day. If you piss him off, then he is going to shoot me in the skull because of your actions. I don't want to die."

"And I don't want these survivors to live either." Jack turned to his robbers. "Those of you who have guns, light 'em up!"

The sniper shot Aiello, but the bullet curved downwards and shot both Jonathan and Aiello in the shoulder. That was not the only result.

The sudden pain in Aiello's shoulder forced him to fire the gun upon reflex. A bullet tore into Jonathan's skull and came out painted with blood. Aiello was terrified at his results that he widened his eyes.

Jack could not believe what happened. Out of pure anger, he snatches the axe from one of the robbers and hurls it up towards the truck and towards the sniper. The axe pierced him in the neck and he fell off the eighteen wheeler, dead.

When Aiello heard Tai started up the truck, he kicked Jonathan's corpse forward and jumped into the backseat just as it hit full speed. The SUV drove as fast as it could to get away from the city.

The robber with the LMG wanted to fire, but Jack was blocking his aim. By the time he got a clear visual, the SUV was already out of range and firing now would mean wasting bullets.

Jack held Jonathan's corpse in his hands, tears falling down his cheeks. He was filled with both pain and anger. Pain that his brother was dead and anger that Aiello killed his brother. He then vowed vengeance. He would follow Aiello across the country if that's what it took to avenge his brother.

He turned back to the five robbers still alive. "How many men do we still have? At least eleven robbers are currently dead according to the intruder."

"Plus us…" The chainsaw robber said. "We have thirty-six robbers left alive."

"Good, I want every single robber in LA to hunt down that SUV in the distance. I heard Aiello say he had a wife and son so we are going to find his family and kill them. No matter what, and then we shall take the city of Vancouver as our new location."

In the back of the SUV, Abby began stitching up Aiello's shoulder wound. He felt pain in his shoulder as Abby dug into his skin to get the bullet out. "You know, that bullet shot Jonathan in the shoulder and slowed down the bullet from entering your shoulder. You are very lucky the bullet didn't break apart upon impact."

"How do you know all of this stuff?" Aiello asked. "You must have learned it after the apocalypse or something."

"My mother was a surgeon. A world-class surgeon before the apocalypse. Before she died, she taught me how to stitch up wounds and treat injuries. What's your story?"

"My mother stayed at home to take care of me and my twin sister while my father was a railroad worker, meaning he was the kind of guy who installs train tracks. Something like that requires a lot of physical labor, which whipped him into shape."

"And that's how you became in good shape?"

"Yes. I know why you're asking and I just want to remind you: I am married. I don't regret having Erik or getting married. If you have a chance of love in the apocalypse, grab it." He turns to Luis in the front seat. "What's your story, Luis?"

"My parents were travelers from Mexico. They arrived here in Canada just two days after the first outbreak. Luckily, they weren't bitten, but I have not seen them in a long time. Not since I turned nineteen. I've been living all by myself from now."

"Tai, what about you?"

"My old man of a father was a congressperson for Idaho. He was left trapped there when the outbreak started. It was just me and my mother, and she ended up overrun, but I have no idea if she's alive or dead. This happened just three years ago."

Oliver then told his story. "My father was an engineer and my mother was a mechanic and carpenter. I grew up loving to build things rather than breaking things. I remember when I was four, I wanted to be an architect. But because of this apocalypse, I can never be that."

"What about you Sadie?"

"Got nothing much of a story. I don't remember having a father and when I asked my mother, an optometrist, she told me that my father was a serial killer. I asked how she could possibly fall for a serial and she told that she was unaware that he was a serial killer."

"Vince man, my first victim?" Aiello jokingly said.

"Nothing much, I was an orphan. Been living on the streets with various homeless people, been taught self-reliance ever since this whole outbreak started. That's pretty much my story."

"Aiello, where are we heading?" Tai asked as he pulled up to the side of the road. "You can drive if you want."

"Okay then, as soon as Abby finishes up."

"Done."

"Okay then." He steps out the SUV and onto the dirt ground. He looks back the way they came and border into Canada was no longer in sight and nothing but a memory on the road. They've already been driving on the road for three hours. They still had to spend several more hours.

"You said we're going to your camp? Right?" Abby asked.

"Yeah, it's based at a power plant in Vancouver. We have electricity and more importantly, we can fry zombies with the electric fences." Aiello climbed into the back seat. "Are you ready for an epic adventure back home? We got enough gas?"

"Yeah," Sadie answered, checking the dashboard.

"Hop in and we are going back home and back to the Moral One's camp." Aiello shifted gears as soon as everyone was in the car.

Just before he took off, he saw a zombie in the rearview mirror. A single zombie with its left arm chopped off. It reminded him of the first zombie he ever encountered for some reason.

"Are we going or not?" Oliver asked from the passenger seat, tapping Aiello on the shoulder.

"Yeah, just saw a zombie. Should be no big deal though." Aiello shifted gears. "Well then, enough dilly-dallying. Vancouver, here we come."

He shifted gears once more and drove off.

Abby asked. "What else is at the camp?"

"Aside from food, water, clothes, medicine and a map of all possible safe havens across Canada."

"I hear Washington DC may be the best safe haven there is."

"Abby, we simply do not have enough resources to travel that far. Every day a human dies and every day a zombie is born." Aiello rubbed his forehead in anxiety.

* * *

_Day 19_

_The next day, as they drive across the country, they are met and encountered by a group of bandits called the Roadside. The bandits attempt to take everything that the group has, but Aiello, after taking charge of the group, refuses to give anything. Things start to get extremely hostile between the groups, leading to the Roadside bandit leader to draw his gun and aim it at Aiello. Aiello is much faster at pulling his gun out and shoots him in the brains before finishing off his friends. The rest of the group is shocked to witness Aiello shooting living people dead. They are able to put things behind them and get back on track._


	7. Issue 7

_Day 19_

_As they drive alongside the road, the remaining Roadside Bandits reveal their greatest weapon: two armored trucks. Two of them try to box in the survivors and a high-speed chase breaks out. Aiello does everything in his power to outwit the trucks and destroy them. He succeeds and in the process, causes a car crash. Everybody survives and starts scavenging what they can before moving on, continuing this journey on foot._

_Day 22_

_After three days of walking on foot, they finally come to a stop at a truck stop and start piling up on supplies. Just as they are about to leave, they are surrounded by a big group of survivors with homemade weapons._

* * *

Day 4,613

It took them a day, but they finally arrived in Vancouver at six o'clock in the morning. They arrived at the powerplant that Aiello told them about. Aiello parked the SUV in front of the gates and walked inside, disabling the defenses by entering a code in one of the panels.

Aiello walked through and saw the most amazing sight possible. His wife, son, and best friend were sitting around a fire and eating cooked meat. When the younger version of Aiello - Erik - saw his father, the food dropped to the floor.

Aiello raced forward, Erik doing the same thing. Aiello picked Erik off the ground and hugged him tightly.

"Daddy!" Erik cheered as he hugged Aiello tightly. "I missed you, Daddy!"

"Me too," Aiello sniffed as he felt a tear roll down his cheek. Mila runs up and hugs both her husband and son tightly. He broke apart from the hug to introduce the three to the group that he brought with. "Guys, I forgot to introduce. These people I saved in at the border. Meet Tai, Abby, Luis, Oliver, Sadie, and Vincent."

Tai was the first to shake hands with everyone.

"Welcome to the Moral Ones." Aiello's friend Ryan said. He looked to be in his late twenties the same as Aiello.

Mila still had purple hair while Erik had dirty blonde hair like Aiello and both appeared to be excited to have new survivors part in the group. Now there were ten of them.

"You've been gone for so long. Did you finally get what you wanted?" Mila asked, remembering why Aiello disappeared in the first place.

"Yes I did, but I could not bring myself to kill him in cold blood. Instead, I left him to be devoured."

"Daddy, do you promise not to leave this time?"

"I promise son. I promise." He rubbed his son's hair. "So, is there anything that I missed while I was gone?"

"Nothing much," Mila shrugged. "Nothing interesting at all. What did we miss?"

Aiello told her about the bandits and robbers. Tai even backed him up saying that everything that happened was true.

"Don't matter anyway. What matters right now is I am back with you guys and I will never leave your sides. That is what matters most."

Erik hugged his father tightly. "We caught a deer. You hungry?"

"Starving, but I am sure these guys are starving more than me. Right?"

Tai nodded.

"Then jump in and get some food and then we shall call it a day." Aiello walked back outside, Erik following, to go retrieve their supplies from the truck. "Son, if there's one thing I learned yesterday if you have one bullet, never waste it."

Aiello grabbed his rifle and checked to see if he still had the one bullet inside. He brought all the equipment back with Erik's help and turned on the electric fences.

"You know, they say there is strength in numbers. The more people the Moral Ones have, the more likely they will live. 'Live' not 'survive'."

Ryan began serving food to the people. Aiello took this moment to clean his gun and eat at the same time.

"Dad," Erik began once he caught Aiello's attention, "I never got a chance to tell you how much all that physical exercise has paid off. I got to move a lot of heavy stuff today and I felt like I had superhuman strength. Thank you for the workout, Daddy."

"Your welcome son. We are all going to survive the apocalypse. Nothing can bring this family down."

"Even if this world lasts for another decade or so?"

"Son, if it comes to that, I will still survive, You will still survive, your mother will still survive."

Erik held up a hand with a smile. "Not surviving, living."

Aiello chuckled at his son before nodding in agreement. He places his hand on the barrel of his gun before asking his son, "What is the motto of the Moral Ones?"

Erik knew the answer, so did Mila and Ryan.

"The Moral Ones have a motto?" Oliver asked, eating a bone of cooked meat. "I guess every group needs a motto."

"The motto is We don't survive, we live," Erik answered. "In a world like this, there has to be something more than just surviving. There has to be living."

Abby asked where she could go to the bathroom.

"Over there," Aiello pointed to a spot behind the tree. "I already marked my territory though." He laughed. "Stay out of it."

"While we're eating you had to say that?"

"After everything humans must go through to see another day, that is gross?" This time, everyone was laughing. Abby went up to go in the corner. "I also left my mark in Alaska and all the way here. I left our mark."

"Is that necessary?" Ryan asked doubtfully. "Surviving is morality itself."

While Aiello was talking to Ryan, Tai asked Mila, "I never asked but what is your story? We told Aiello our story and he told us his."

"My story, I was seventeen when the virus hit," Mila started. "I had just moved to BC when it hit and we evacuated ourselves to a haven. When I first met Aiello, he had saved me from being chocked. We took Aiello with him and he protected us from bad people that wanted to harm other people. I fell for him eventually after he pulled me out of a sticky situation and I never forgot the sacrifice he made."

"Yeah," Aiello confirmed, but he was smiling awkwardly due to the memory of what happened when he 'saved' her from being strangled. "For years to come, we had each other's back, never turning our backs and a couple of years later, we got married and had a son. Having Erik was the best thing that ever happened to me." He puts a hand around Erik's shoulder.

"What about me?" Mila asked in mock hurt.

Aiello smiled. "You need a hearing aid?" he joked back. "I'm kidding, you and Erik are the best things that ever happened to me.

Mila laughed at her husband before playfully punching him in the arm, "You're crazy Aiello."

In the corner of his eye, he saw Abby from behind the tree. He saw that she was slipping her gown off and putting on some new clothes. He tried to look away, but it's hard when you see a girl's bareback.

Finally, he did look away and placed his rifle on the ground. He focused completely on eating his deer meat. "You know guys, if we get the proper resources, then we can build a community for people to live in. We can save a lot of lives. We can help people live, raise babies or even have marriages. I would love to renew my wedding vows with my beloved Mila."

"Building communities is going to be hard." Abby pointed out, returning to sit with the others, wearing a blue tank top.

"Hard, but possible," Luis stated. "We have some skills that can help us build communities. If we had bigger numbers than we could make a community."

"A walled-off community." Sadie nudged Oliver in the side. "Right, Oliver?"

"Right. I'm an architect, kinda. When I was four, I liked building things rather than breaking things. I could help supervise a construction site and build things."

"Then you and I can be partners," Ryan suggested.

"I could be of medical assistance. My mother used to be a world-class surgeon, she could fix people up in no time. Before she died, she told me about her skills. Had the outbreak not started, I would have been a doctor, a surgeon." Tai can also participate in building the community." Abby then suggested.

"I just want to make sure I am useful and not dead weight."

"Hey, the Moral Ones have a policy: There is no deadweight. Anyone useless can be useful for something," Aiello told firmly. "Remember, the Moral Ones' main goal is to keep humanity civilized."

"Amen to that." Luis bowed.

"One hundred percent," Abby agreed. "But since we are in the planning phase, we should start making blueprints."

"We can do that tomorrow because I just got back to my family and I want to spend time with them as much as possible," spoke Aiello. "We'll start fresh on an idea in the morning if that's alright. Wait for a second, I'm the leader of the group, I just remembered."

"Aiello, how about you just sit down and enjoy family time then?" Mila asked.

"Alright then." Aiello made himself comfortable before eating more cooked meat with his family, and friends. He doesn't consider them friends, he considers them family. All Moral Ones are family.

Nighttime had indeed fallen and the Moral Ones set up tents for everyone to sleep in. There were ten survivors so Ryan, Abby, and Sadie slept in one tent, Luis, Oliver, Tai, and Vincent slept in the other tent. Aiello, Mila, and Erik got the last tent.

The fire was extinguished and the only light that existed in the camp was the one coming from Aiello's tent.

Erik was already asleep when Aiello began discussing something with his wife. "Mila, remember how I told you that I shot a robber by accident? I have a feeling that robbers' brother, Jack is going to hunt me down for revenge. I may have mentioned to the original robber leader, Jonathan, that I have a wife and son."

Mila did not say a single word.

"I don't want to put you or our son's life in danger. We may have to ditch the vehicle and run away. This is just a precaution because, in a world like this, any one of us could die in an instant."

"You think he will follow you from the border?" Mila asked

"I stayed in Alaska so I can hunt down a bandit; Revenge will drive people to the edge of the world."

"If we leave, then where do we go? And how are we going to get there?"

"We have a map of all possible safe havens in Canada. The nearest haven we could go to is sugarcane. We can ditch the car we came in and find other means of travel. I just want to keep my son and my wife and my family safe. I don't want them to die for a crime I've committed."

"Should we tell the others?" She already knew the answer. "Honesty is a moral trait."

"We will tell them first thing tomorrow and then that is where we move away from this place. These robbers are good trackers, trust me. The leader told me they are." Aiello looked at his four-year-old son. "I want our son to make it in the world. I want him to live until the very end."

"He will. Optimism is a moral trait."

"Glass half full." Aiello chuckled. "You know, since Erik is asleep and he's a very heavy sleeper, we could make ourselves fall asleep with some fun." He smiled mischievously. "I mean, isn't that what loved ones do?"

"Okay, you pushed the right button." Mila kisses him passionately on the lips. "And yes, Erik is a heavy sleeper. Don't you think that could be a bad thing?"

"Means he will wake up on his terms and is stubborn as hell. If you haven't noticed, he does not snore. No attracting any zombies at all. That's the one good thing about being a heavy sleeper."

"We appear to be steering off the cliff." He kisses her neck and reaches for the lamp and turns it off. "I don't regret having Erik or marrying you."

"Same for me."

Aiello put his hand to her temple. They kissed more passionately. They fell asleep after enjoying the night.

* * *

_Day 22_

_The big group introduces themselves as the Romans, a group of survivors at war with another group called the Faithful, who want to eradicate the Romans due to their aggressive and violent nature. The Romans attempt to recruit the six survivors into their army, but Aiello, after taking leadership of the group, refuses to do anything and attempts to walk away, only for the Romans to start getting anxious. When the group starts walking, the Romans attack them and brutally injure Atticus in the process and grab Mila hostage. Aiello, not wanting anything bad to happen to her, takes up on their offer to join the Romans and fight the Faithful. They join._


	8. Issue 8

_Day 23_

_Aiello and Mila are training with their necessary evil enemies, learning the basics of how to fight. When their training session was over, Aiello pulled Mila off to the side where he could finally talk with her. He wants to tell her that he truly does love her but she keeps refusing to believe what he is saying and slaps him. The leader of the Romans talks to Aiello and instructs him that he is not allowed to have a relationship with Mila as it could affect his performance. Aiello fails to see the harm in it, however. That night, he returns to his quarters and falls asleep. Somebody sneaks into his room, however. _

* * *

Day 4,614

As he looked at the notepad in his hands, horror-struck him like a baseball bat. They were running out of food badly and Hugh was starting to grow desperate. "Justin, Julian, Dezeray!" He calls out. Two men and a woman walk into his bedroom and stare at him in wonder. "How many pounds of food do we have?" He shows them the notepad with the statistics written down.

Justin took the notepad and studied it with glasses on. They have only eleven pounds of food left and twenty mouths to feed. "We are running low on meatheads," Justin stated the obvious, "We just chopped up three people yesterday, they should have kept us fed for another few weeks."

"They were _weak_," Hugh growled in anger as he stood up to his feet. "We have been wasting time going after weak people, we have to go after strong people. Those who weigh two hundred pounds at least if we're going to survive another twelve years in this apocalyptic wasteland."

"It is rare to find foods like that actually," Julian stated as-a-matter-of-factly. "Animals have become much more scarce for food sources. Humans are no different. Just the ones weighing two hundred pounds are getting scarce."

"We can't stop looking. We need food to save both ourselves and others. We need to send a group of men out to capture a group of meatheads." Hugh turns to the other cannibals in the room. "Dezeray, you and a few others will do a scout for any survivors. You see a group, you capture them alive and then we shall eat them. Same goes for you, Julian."

Julian salutes. "Roger that boss."

"We may be cannibals, but we are survivors," Hugh said, obviously not regretting that he resorted to cannibalism to survive. He's been cannibalizing since the third week of the outbreak and he is not ashamed to have eaten a human being to survive. But at this point in the apocalypse, twelve years later, with very few people left alive on this planet, it seemed like a good idea to just kill a zombie, cook it under fire, and then eat it.

Hugh walked into the kitchen where cannibals were pining a teenage boy on a table. Four butchers held up machetes and at the same time, they chopped off all four of the boy's limbs. He screamed in agony, which was only muffled by when one of the cannibals pinning him put their hand on his mouth. The second cannibal pinning him down grabbed a machete handled by one of the butchers and quickly decapitated the boy. They collected the limbs while the head was taken away and out of sight.

The butchers holding the corpse down were getting blood spilled on their aprons.

The 'head' butcher with the head went into one room and placed the head on top of a shelf of heads.

The butchers took the limbs to a stove and began cooking them like a barbeque. Hugh walked up to the butchers and patted them on the back as they finished cooking up the meals. The smell of human flesh attracted the rest of the cannibals like a pack of wolves. There were twenty-four cannibals in total and only eight of them were going to be able to eat human meat.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we may have to share this food among others," Hugh told his cannibal survivors. "I apologize if that bites."

"I'm so hungry Hugh," a female called out, "You promised us food."

"You're starving?" Hugh asked sarcastically. "I can help with that." He winks at one of Julian. Chop off her arm and then she could eat it. Self-cannibalism!"

"What?" She screamed as she was restrained by Justin and another cannibal and held her over the same table where the boy lost his life. The unnamed cannibal held her down tightly and Justin pulled out a butcher knife and raised it high above her head. She could barely see the sharp blade in the corner of her eye as it prepared to come down on her arm spread on the table. "NO!"

"Stop!" Hugh ordered in time, laughing at her expense. "I believe she's got the message. Let her go." The cannibals follow his orders. "I promise you all I will get food. I am sending a team to do recon, aiming specifically for a group. Once they find one, then they will bring them back here and we will get some food. For all twenty of us." He grabs a cooked finger and puts it to his mouth. He consumes the flesh from the bone. "Taste delicious." He took another bite and turns to his fellow cannibals. "Alright listen up, I am just as hungry as you guys and I am not saying that because I am eating a kids' finger. We survived as cannibals and if that's what it takes to survive than let's eat every human in the world. We will find a large group and we will have a large meal. Remember, children taste better than adults. Get to it, ladies and gentlemen. We start meathead hunting at dawn."

* * *

Five vans filled with robbers drove up to a road leading to an empty neighborhood. Jack was in the lead car and he was making sure that Aiello's trail has not gone cold. He was not going to stop until he kills Aiello and his entire family. Those survivors who escaped with him as well. If he has to destroy a whole community to kill Aiello, then so be it. Whatever supplies they find though is just icing on the cake.

* * *

The first sunray that hit the camp, Aiello woke everybody up and told him his plans. "I am sorry to tell you all this, but we can't stay here for too long. We have to leave right now. Those robbers from the border could be on their way here right now, out for blood."

"So we are just going to run away like that?" Ryan asked with a slight hint of annoyance in his voice. "After all it took to find this place, we're just going to turn away like that?"

"Yes," Aiello said fiercely and with a stern voice. "Because we are not going to stay here and wait for bullets to pump into us. "Not when I just regrouped with my son, who also happens to be your nephew."

"Aiello's right," Abby backed up his plan. "These guys are bad news. They also seem to hold a grudge for trespassers. Considering that we trespassed and escaped without paying and killing their leader..."

"I'm glad my son wasn't there to see what kind of brutal slaughtering they did to people. I don't want my son to see that. I mean, I know he will see it at some point, but I want to keep him as innocent as possible."

Aiello picked up his Ruger 30 and loaded a magazine into the gun. "We gotta go now. Let's load up and start walking away."

There was some protesting but others did as they were told and they packed up their backpacks and began leaving, abandoning the car from the border and walking down the road, sticking as far away from the road as possible, hiding only when a car is in sight.

They walked for hours on the road, only stopping when they are forced to. Then they came upon train tracks.

Ryan catches up to Abby and shyly says hi to her.

"Hello," Abby replies, "What's up?"

"You remember my name, right?"

"Ryan, you're Mila's brother from what I hear."

"I sure am."

"What do you want, buddy?"

"Uh…" Ryan was trying to figure out a way to tell this to her. If it wasn't the apocalypse, he never would've had the courage to tell her because there were plenty of fish in the sea and the chances were astronomical. Now, with over half the world gone, he figured he might have a better chance. "I think you look really pretty."

Abby didn't let it show but she inwardly smiled at the compliment. "Thank you." She looked at him and saw that he was blushing erratically. "You look pretty too."

Ryan smiled as his heart gave off a warm sensation. "Thank you."

Abby stops him before any more could be said. "I just want you to know: I'm a lesbian."

"Wow," Ryan's eyes lit up like a firework, "I'm gay. I had a huge crush on this one kid from my group, Kevin, he didn't make it."

"If you're gay, then why did you approach me?"

"I just wanted you to know that you look pretty...and I've been living in a closet for about my whole life. But Kevin brought me out."

"If there weren't a lot of homosexual people back then when the world was normal, then there must be a lower number considering that there are only a million people left alive or so."

Ryan nodded, "Yeah, but I've never had a gay friend before. For the longest time, I've always wanted one so I could share my feelings with."

"Same," she admitted, "We could probably become friends or something. I mean, you and I are going to be stuck together so why not just chat about gay subjects?"

" 'Subjects' is alright, but I agree with you. Let's be friends."

He holds out his hand. Abby looks down at his hand and grabs it. They shake firmly and they each smile.

Several minutes later following the train tracks, the cannibals of Hugh's group stumbled upon someone laying down on the train tracks on his side. Dezeray bent down to check on the wounded man. Seven cannibals stood behind her and began watching the wounded man like a vulture.

Dezeray gets out some water and gave the man a sip. Dezeray could not afford to waste any time, but the least she could do was give the wounded man on the train tracks a drink of water. "How did you wound your stomach?" She asked.

"People...people," the man wheezed in a raspy breath. "Hungry."

Dezery clenched her jaw, "We are hungry as well, and we are disappointed to discover that we are one step further away from food." She reaches for her gun, but it was snatched from her hand by one of the cannibals.

He lined the crosshairs up to the wounded man's temple and pulled the trigger. "You just wasted one-fourth quarters of water in that canteen. We don't waste resources."

"Thanks, dick." She snatches her gun back, and then she heard a gun being cocked. Dezeray looks up to see several survivors with their pistols trained on them. Dezeray raises her hand and glares at them. The other cannibals follow her example.

"What the fuck is going on here?" Aiello had Erik on his shoulders and he handed him to Mila. He stepped in front of his wife and child protectively. "What the fuck was that?!" he snarled.

"We could not eat him," Dezeray snarled back in anger at Aiello like he was the cause of the problem. She eyes the nine survivors standing behind Aiello. "Call us cannibals all you want, but we are survivors."

"Cannibalism? I despise that thing." Aiello clutched the gun tighter in his hands.

"Are we going to kill them, Daddy?" Erik asked, still clinging onto Mila's back.

"Turn away, baby," Mila urged to her child. Tai and Oliver stepped in front of her. Abby and Ryan drew their guns.

Aiello hesitated for a brief second, shocked that his son would be asking that if they were going to turn a living person into a corpse. If he executed all eight cannibals, then he would be influencing Erik into becoming a killer or at the very least, influence Erik into seeing killing as the rational option. As a Moral One and a father, he was not going to let that happen. Instead, since the cannibals were evil, Aiello decided to rob them of their guns but let them keep their supplies so they could survive. He did not like cannibalism, but he still believed in having some moral code to live by.

"Give us your weapons. You can keep your supplies, but there is no doubt we will be taking your weapons with us."

Dezeray took a keen interest in Aiello. She knew he was a father, by the way, he was stepping in front of a woman and child. She was more focused on the fact that he looked to be tall and he weighed a lot. He even had nine people in a group and one child. The cannibal pack was not above eating children, but Dezeray was. She could not stomach her child, especially someone who is just starting their lives. It reminded her of her stillborn child. She missed her baby.

"Place your weapons on the ground," Dezeray ordered her group. The pack of predators complied, angrily. One of them refused to back down out of starvation and desperation and drew a backup gun. A machine pistol. He opened fire on the ten, but a bullet from Aiello's Ruger 30 blew into his chest and he fell to the ground, squeezing rounds into the air.

Aiello checked to make sure no one in his group was injured and was shocked to discover that Vincent's chest was leaking blood like a candle. Vincent gasped just before his health permanently reached zero.

Just as the dead Vincent collapsed to the ground, Dezeray grabbed her gun from the ground and open fired at the group, making sure not to shoot Aiello or the child. Her fellow cannibals returned fire and ran out into the field beside the train tracks

Ryan and Abby dived to the ground and open fired while the others crouched down into the high grass.

Dezeray dives down a hill and lands near a boulder. A cannibal lands beside her and lays his body on top of hers, his crotch position around her butt area. "Paul?"

A cannibal ran to take cover behind a cactus, but he was shot in the back and killed by Aiello. He turns around to see his son rolling down a hill and towards the boulder with Dezeray and the other cannibal. "Erik!" He shouts in fear of his son being eaten not by the dead by the living.

Dezeray reacted quickly and grabbed Erik by the throat and put a gun barrel to his temple. "Stop fighting!" She shouts desperately, not wanting any harm to be brought to the child but she had to make the threat look genuine. "No more shooting. No more death. No more bloodshed."

"Hold your fire! Stand down!" Aiello ordered to his Moral Ones. He then shouts to the cannibals in an angry voice mixed with derogatory terms for cannibals. "Don't hurt my son. We'll give you all our equipment, all our guns, all our guns, but don't hurt my son!"

Dezeray counted how many man-eaters were still alive and counted six cannibals plus herself.

Aiello orders for his Moral Ones to drop down their weapons and keep their hands up. The five cannibals went to subdue the Moral Ones by knocking every single one of them.

Aiello was hit in the back and he fell to his knees. He saw Erik struggle to get away from Dezeray, but his attempts were useless. Dezeray would just jam the barrel deeper into his temple.

"Please don't hurt my son. If you hurt him or anyone else in my group, I will kill all of you." He did not care if his son heard. He needed his son and his entire group to know that the group's goals will not interfere with his personal goals.

Dezeray slammed the barrel into Erik's skull, knocking him out cold. Aiello yelled in anger and was then struck in the back of the head, going unconscious.

Several minutes later, Aiello woke up with chains on his hands and sitting side by side with his entire crew. He saw his son, wife, brother-in-law to his right, Tai, Abby, Oliver, Sadie and Luis to his left.

Dezeray studied them intently, trying to decide which one to eat as soon as they were back home. They were going to save Aiello for last and Dezeray would figure something out with his son.

"Please don't do this," he begged. He thought of some kind of lie in desperation. "If you cannibals eat me than you could be destroying a person who can help restore the world to the way it was. I am immune to the zombie virus. I am. Honest."

Aiello though, _I'm immune to the zombie virus? Where the hell did that come from?_

Dezeray shrugged this off. "Yeah right. You are making that up so you can save your skin from being cooked. Your son's as well."

"If you don't believe, lift my shirt."

"You're trying to seduce me. It's not going to work. You are not going to get under _my_ skin you son of a bitch. Let's take these guys back."

The nine survivors were forced to their feet. Aiello led the nine survivors as they were being pushed alongside the train tracks. When no one was looking, Aiello growled at the cannibals, swearing that they will all die.

* * *

_Day 23_

_Aiello wakes up in time to see a knife coming towards him. He moves out of the way in time but could not see the face of his attacker. He shoves the attacker back and pushes him to the ground. He is kicked in the leg and falls. The attacker climbs on top of Aiello and almost shoved a knife through his chest. Tanya walked into the room to tell Aiello something when she saw the attacker. She hit the attacker over the head but he ended up slicing her across the throat. She collapses to the ground. Aiello punches the attacker unconscious and tries to save Tanya. Unfortunately, the wounds are too fatal. The unknown attacker escapes in the night and Mila and Ryan walk in on Aiello doing CPR on their mother, breaking down in tears over the death of their mother._


	9. Issue 9

_Day 24_

_The day after the attack, the Romans laid Tanya to rest by making sure she doesn't reanimate. They bury her in the ground and they even hold a funeral. Aiello was the shoulder that Mila used to cry on. Kevin was the shoulder that Ryan was using to cry on. Atticus was staring at the corpse with a slight hint of remorse._

_Day 25_

_When the funeral was over, the leaders of the Romans called to a meeting and plan their first attack against the Faithful and they give Aiello and Mila the task of infiltrating it from the inside. Ryan, Kevin, and Atticus were given the task of investigating who the possible murderer was. _

* * *

Several hours have passed since their capture. Aiello knew exactly where they were. They were being held up in some church that had been too overgrown to recognize. Either way, he knew that this was the base of operations for the cannibals. They were stripped down to nothing but their underwear and forced against the wall with handcuffs. Aiello discovered that they were not the only survivors captured. Besides them, three more people have been captured and they were crying for their lives. Aiello felt remorseful for these people, seeing how scared they were that this just might be their last day on earth. After surviving for twelve years, their luck was finally going to run out.

A man with a wide set of eyes and long eyelashes and chiseled jaw approached them from one of the rooms. They were in the kitchen and there was a table with blood caked on. They knew exactly what was going on and what they were going to do. Four cannibals dressed in aprons with latex gloves on also entered the room and Aiello guessed that they were the butchers.

"Hello there, survivors," the cannibal king spoke politely and calmly. "My name is Hugh and I appreciate the fact that you guys 'willingly' sacrificed ourselves so we can eat tonight." He clapped his hands before he walked around the room, stalking his victims. Hugh turned to Aiello and smiled at him. He was the only one not gazing that the half-naked females. "You look mad."

"What do you think?" Aiello snapped his head forward, almost hitting Hugh. "This is how you survive; by eating your species?"

"At least we're surviving. We survived for twelve years because of our methods." Aiello saw no humanity within the man, having sold it completely for survival. He was a man with no moral code and when Aiello realized this, he also realized that he is staring at what he would've become if he had no moral code. "You hunt squirrels and deer, which are becoming less and less frequent. Humans are a more common plus, they last a lot longer than any animal we've ever eaten. Both pre and post-apocalypse. Children, we will always kill first because they are the first to be consumed. They taste more fresh than adults. However, since you killed two of my men, I am going to save your son for last. I am going to cut you up in front of your son and force him to eat you." He smiles like a maniac. "A child eating their father."

Aiello headbutted Hugh, knocking him backward. Hugh regained his balance and touched his forehead. Blood seeped into his fingers He just licked them.

"You have fire and some heart within you. Me, I prefer the hearts because they are a human being's life source. Their soul. So I like consuming a person's soul."

"I have a feeling I am going to jump right out of your stomach after you eat my soul." Aiello glared at the cannibal "How about this if you eat just me than you let everyone else go?"

"Nope, not the way the world works anymore. You either eat or be eaten." Hugh countered.

"I'd rather be eaten by zombies than cannibals."

"Not going to happen." Hugh punched Aiello in the face, but his face barely snapped. "You go some stamina and athletic built within you. How old are you, twenty, thirty?"

"Twenty-nine."

Hugh looked at Aiello and then at Erik, who was stripped down to his boxer briefs. He was taking note of how Erik did look like a younger version of Aiello. "How old is your son?"

"Four!" Erik answered his father.

Hugh gave a disgusted look. "You let yourself become vulnerable by having a child. You gave yourself a weakness and I'm going to exploit that weakness."

"You're speaking as if I killed your mother or something," Aiello spat in Hugh's face, "What did I do to you to make you sociopathic?"

"Nothing, I'm just a necessary evil."

"More like _evil_ evil."

"Boss?" Julian called from standing over the three unnamed survivors. "Should we execute these three?" When Hugh nodded, Julian and the four butchers grabbed the first survivor, laid him down on the table and the four butchers chopped off his four limbs before Julian did the honors decapitating him with a machete. They placed all limbs onto a tray and knocked the carcass to the ground and kicked it to the side with another limbless carcass. The process was repeated on the second survivor.

Sadie theorized that after the third survivor, then she was going to be next. She may have been stripped to nothing but her underwear and bras, but there was one thing she managed to acquire before she was stripped. A cyanide pill that was hidden in her bra that she slipped out and hid in between her ring and middle finger. She always knew she was not going to survive for very long in this world, and when she died, she would kill herself. She was not terrified, she had been preparing herself for this very moment for a long time. She knew that if she consumed the suicide pill, then her entire body will be tainted and the cannibals will die upon consumption.

She wanted to be chopped and cooked and eaten so the cannibals can die. She took one last look at her entire team as she looked at the small cyanide pill between her ring and middle finger. When none of the cannibals were looking, she flipped it in the air like a coin and caught it in her mouth. She swallowed the suicide device like a pill and felt her chest heaving. She looks up in the sky, believing that her mother was watching over her. _I will be reunited with you in Heaven._

Julian forced the third survivor on the table and the butchers chopped her limbs off and scooped up the limbs. The butchers were cooking up the limbs and taking the decapitated heads somewhere else. Hugh was writing down statistics on Aiello. "Name is Aiello, the last name is unknown. Stands at six-one, weighs two hundred and ten pounds and is in excellent health and had a good meal recently." When he was done with the notes, he announced: "Next one up." Sadie's number had been called. "Sadie, last name unknown. Stands at five-seven and weighs one-forty pounds. Her health is excellent and she has eaten a good meal just recently."

"She's next," Hugh instructed him, "Make it quick because we're all hungry."

Sadie offered no resistance as she was pinned down on the table and her four limbs were chopped off by the butchers. She does not scream, even when her head was decapitated.

Aiello and the others had protested against killing the survivors, but their protests were in vain.

"Nothing can stop you guys from your fate," Hugh told as if he was warning them. "You're already cattle Honestly, you guys were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. But it is time to cook the next one up, who do we have?"

Julian announced. "Oliver, last name unknown. Five-eleven and weighs one-seventy-four pounds. Health is excellent and like the previous victim, he had a good meal just recently."

Julian pinned Oliver down on the table and the four bitchers prepared to butcher him. Just as all four cleavers were raised, Hugh told them to stop.

The two cannibals, Justin and Dezeray, came running into the room with their guns loaded.

Justin spoke first. "Sir, there are some men here to speak to you. They say it is important."

"What kind of men?"

"I have no idea, a whole army of them. They have guns, chainsaws, and grenades."

Aiello knew who these people were before he even met them. _The robbers._ The one time he is happy that adversaries followed him. "If I were you, Hugh, then I would accept their call to talk," he deadpanned, "They're not one to let bygones be bygones and if you ignore them, then its a bygone that they will not ignore."

Moments later, Hugh came walking out of the church and into the fenced-off the courtyard. Dozens of people were at the front gate and armed to the teeth with weapons. Hugh met face to face with a man with a narrow jaw and flattened nose. He introduced himself as Jack.

Jack spoke up with a stern voice, "I am looking for a man, goes by the name of Aiello I heard."

Hugh took interest in why Jack wanted tonight's dinner. "Why?" _Maybe I could snack on this group if I get lucky. I can't accept any more members._

"Aiello killed my brother and so I want revenge." He looked at the church. "I followed his trail right up to here so don't try and deny you have him. I want nobody but Aiello. If you give me your leader, then my men will not slaughter you."

Hugh smiled in amusement. "Sorry, but Aiello is not our leader. I am the leader of the group. We captured Aiello's group and we plan to cook him."

Jack shook his head. "No, I want to kill Aiello myself. Give me Aiello and his entire family. I want them dead."

"But Aiello is such a big load. My people are really hungry and we need to eat. I also want him dead because he killed a cannibal or two. That, and we're really hungry, mostly" Jack shook his head at Hugh's failed attempts of persuasion. "Listen, Jack, we can give you the group he was traveling with, but we get to keep his family. We have a revenge intention with Aiello as well. He killed two of our men so can we kill him first?"

"Well, you cannibals, he killed twelve of my boys, including my brother. I don't want to leave, I don't want his traveling companions, I want Aiello and his family to be killed by my own hands. I did not travel from the Alaska-Canada border for nothing."

"Sorry, but we are going to cook him up."

"Bring Aiello and his family out here or else I will have my men to kill every single one of you cannibals." The robbers behind the de-facto leader raise their guns and aim for Hugh's chest. Some of them aimed for the church specifically.

"I don't take orders from robbers. We can simply kill all of you guys and eat you guys."

Jack and Hugh glared at each other, each one clenching their fists tightly, ready to punch.

Inside the building, after cooking the limbs already chopped off, Julian and the four butchers began eating the survivors and Sadie right in front of the group. They were forced to watch in tears. Julian wanted to chop up Oliver and the others but was told to hold off by Hugh until he gets back. He was not complaining, not since he now had food in his hand and he was eating it. He was eating the first survivor's leg while the four butchers were eating Sadie's arms and legs.

Oliver sat next to Aiello and was panting heavily. He was still in denial about Sadie being dead until he saw one of the butchers suck the skin off her femur.

Aiello began squeezing his hands through the handcuffs as hard as he could, not feeling any pain at all. Once he waited for the right moment, he could jump Julian and the butchers and all of them could escape while Hugh was still talking to Jack and the robbers.

In the most unexpected twist, one of the butchers started gagging and coughing up badly as his lungs burst from within. Julian looked worried and ran up to the butcher, but he failed to catch him as he fell to the ground.

"Hey wake up. Wake up!" Julian slapped him across the face.

Aiello got his hands through the handcuffs. They were bloody and bruising but he didn't care. The other three butchers collapsed like house flies, all except Julian. Aiello knew right off the bat that it must have been Sadie's corpse because all four butchers ate Sadie while Julian ate the limbs from a different survivor.

Aiello charged at Julian and attacked him from behind. He grabs the back of his hair and hammers his head down on a nearby table, knocking him unconscious. Then an explosion ran out outside, startling Aiello. "What the hell was that?" It sounded like the robbers blew open the gates and began raiding. That meant he had to act fast.

He runs back to his group and starts using the inside of a pen he took off a notepad to pick the chains on his fellow survivors one by one, starting with Erik and ending with Luis.

"Guys we have to get out of here."

"What made those butchers fall to the ground?" Erik asked.

"I have no idea, son." Aiello turned his head upon hearing a moan behind him. Zombies were coming in from the only door leading to the kitchen. Aiello gets to his feet and kicks the nearest zombie into the group. The butchers that just died had reanimated as well. Aiello decided not to put them out of their misery.

A revived Julian got up to his feet and grabbed a clever and started chopping off the zombies' heads.

Outside, the robbers had blown the gates with a bazooka after revealing they managed to capture a herd of zombies and led them straight to the church. Jack made it pretty clear to the cannibal king that they were taking this church and robbing the group with everything they had regardless of their decision.

Hugh, Justin, and Dezeray ran for cover inside with the other cannibals. They took out their automatic rifles and started shooting at both the robbers and incoming zombies.

Inside, Aiello and Julian fought each other while the group continued fighting off the zombies.

Julian swung a clever at Aiello's head, but he jerked his head back and punched Julian in the gut, folding him over like paper. He knees Julian in the chest before shoving him backward.

A zombie jumped on Aiello's back and prepared to bite him. Aiello pushes the zombie's head back as far as he could and even manages to throw him off his back. He turns around and the zombie lunges and tackles Aiello to the ground.

Erik came charging and using the clever he picked up, hit the zombie in the back of the head. Blood from the infected spilled out from its mouth and into Aiello's mouth. Aiello had about eight ounces of zombie blood within his mouth but he knew that he was safe. He had gotten zombie blood in his mouth before and there were no effects. Consumption of the zombie virus does not affect survivors and he knew it.

He kicks the zombie off of him and comes up with a plan with the blood in his mouth. He charges at Julian, grabs him by the collar and spits the infected blood in Julian's face, the blood entering his eye. Now that the zombie blood entered an orifice, it was officially over for Julian. If Aiello wasn't going to be the death of him, the bacteria in the zombie blood entering his bloodstream will.

Aiello shoves him backward and he falls to the ground. Julian desperately tried to get the blood off of him, but he was blinded and he let himself get bit on the shoulder. He yells in pain and punches the zombie off of him. He staggers back and falls into the clutches of another zombie. This zombie also bites him in his shoulder. He kicks the zombie back and throws him onto the first zombie. He grabs another clever and uses it to decapitate both zombies.

Julian gasped slowly as he felt his blood drain from his body and his life slowly reach zero. Instead of getting up to fight, he presses his back to the wall and slides down. He clutches his wounds on his shoulder and sighs as he relaxes, accepting his fate.

Aiello knew the rules. If you get the zombie virus in your bloodstream, then whatever it is that made them dead will get into you and die. Julian had realized this and he accepted the fact that he was going to die. He turned to Erik and hugged him, thanking him for saving his life. "You're the best kid a father like me could ask for."

* * *

_Day 26_

_The investigation of Tanya's murder continued for another day. They discover that the killer wasn't some inside man that the Faithful sent, but someone in the group who turned traitor. That's when Ryan, Kevin, and Atticus became suspicious of each other. Meanwhile, Aiello and Mila infiltrate the Faithful base while having a homemade wire hidden under their shirts. They get inside the Faithful's main base of operations and they are treated like guests. They also discover that they have a passive-aggressive nature and deduce that it would be impossible for them to have killed Tanya because they don't kill people with bladed weapons, not even the dead. They use blunt objects. When Aiello realizes this, he deduces that the killer is still back with the Romans and warns Ryan but there is nothing but static on the end._


	10. Issue 10

_Day 26_

_Back on Ryan's end, he does more investigation after his radio dies out. He and Kevin search the high grounds of the Romans and just when they figure it out, Atticus turns on Kevin and Ryan, revealing that he was the traitor who killed Tanya. Meanwhile, Aiello and Mila's cover is blown and they escape. The Faithful chase down the two. One of them pulls a gun on the two as they run. In order to prove his love, he takes the bullet for Mila and passes out. _

* * *

Just as Hugh, Justin and Dezeray ran back inside the kitchen, they were pounced by zombies. Hugh and Dezeray managed to step out of the kitchen in time, but Justin was overrun and caught by the zombies and devoured instantly. An ironic death actually, considering that Justin is a cannibal who ate people and he was eating by former people. Dezeray didn't find it to be funny, but Hugh did.

Hugh and Dezeray barricaded the door shut, trapping the zombies in. Plus Hugh and Dezeray, there was a total of eighteen cannibals left, and they managed to shoot and kill seven robbers.

"We lost our food," Hugh complains angrily. "Because of these guys, we lost our food!" He was no fueled by rage to kill every single robber. "Do not back down now. We kill these robbers, then all's well that ends well."

Just as Aiello and his entire group made it out the back with their melee weapons, guns and their clothes, they discovered that the entire community around them has been fenced off and the top of the fences had barb wires. Zombies began to swarm them left and right but they fended them off, and along the way, Aiello met up with his old enemies from the Alaska-Canada border.

"Robbers. Why did it have to be robbers." Aiello looked to see a robber hiding behind a small crowd of zombies. He raised his gun to shoot at the group, Aiello reacted quickly and threw the clever into the robber's throat, killing him instantly. "I could've made a good butcher."

Aiello charged through the crowd to retrieve the robber's fallen assault rifle. When he picked it up, he open fired at the zombies and ran back to his group. The group had meleed their way through the crowd of undead flesh-eaters and several more robbers snuck up on the group. Aiello gunned down the robbers and saved his family.

The group was cornered against the barb wire fence, but honestly, they were rip their flesh with something man-made then an undead flesh-eating cannibal.

"How are we going to escape?" Erik asked his father in fear as a zombie reached for him.

Aiello shot off the zombie's arm before pulling it to the ground and caving its head in. "We have to climb up and over."

"But the barb wire daddy," he cried.

"It's either that or we are eaten by zombies," he spoke firmly. "Start climbing over than we can make a run for the woods." When Aiello ran dry of ammo, he and Ryan began fighting off zombies with their melee weapons.

"Ryan, you better survive this," Aiello shouted to his friend and brother-in-law. "You better survive this for Abby's sake."

"Come on," Luis shouts, "Let's get out of here." Luis boosted Aiello's child to the top. "Be very careful of the barb wire."

Erik climbed quickly to the top, but climbed very slowly and carefully through the barb wire, making sure not to get cut. He made it through without a scratch. Aiello was so proud of his son but this was no time to celebrate. "Erik, catch this clever." He hurls his weapon over the fence and it lands next to Erik. "Use it to defend yourself!"

Aiello will fight all these zombies and infected with his bare hands if he has to if it means his wife and child survive.

"Get out of here!" Oliver commanded, cupping his hands and boosting Abby up to the top. When she made it over without a scratch, Oliver helped Mila out.

The zombies were getting closer and closer, but Aiello and Ryan held their ground. Realizing that they needed help, Luis went up to their side and started killing zombies and infected with his bowie knife, which he got off one of the butchers.

Jack and several other robbers broke through the front door, loaded for bear, but not loaded weapons. Hugh, Dezeray and the remaining cannibals open fired on all robbers that were in sight. Jack dodged and hid behind the wall while his comrades were mowed down in cold blood.

_Who would kill people in a church?_ Jack wondered. The zombies around him that he brought with had started eating the robbers around the courtyard. They were consumed like a pack of wolves eating deer.

Jack ran into the church just as the zombies were about to eat him. He sprints through the front door and hides behind a wooden bench. Zombies filled the church like water. The cannibal pack shot at the zombies coming in from the front door, but they did not take into consideration that the zombies trapped in the kitchen may break out.

That is until the door fell forward and hit Dezeray and trapped her underneath. The zombies piled over one another in an attempt to catch their prey.

Dezeray was terrified that the zombies might reach for her, but they did not appear to detect her presence under the door.

The living cannibals were consumed by the dead cannibals until there was no one left but Hugh and Jack. And Dezeray but she was safe at this point.

_This is karma,_ Dezeray mentally cried, _Please spare me, God._

Running dry on bullets, Hugh smashed the window behind him and jumped out just as the zombies overruned him. Jack backed into the farthest corner and fired every bullet he had into the zombies.

Horror struck as he realized that his plan had backfired horribly on him. He had only one bullet left and the zombies surrounded him in every direction, growing closer and closer to him each second. Without thinking, he puts the barrel up to his temple and pulls the trigger.

Dezeray remained inside the church, hiding underneath the door as the zombies consumed her friends around her. It was a sight that made her cry.

Outside the church, Hugh ran as fast as he could from the zombies, running up to the fence and climbing. He was completely ignorant of the barb wire on talk, worrying about nothing but his own survival. And that cost him a large cut across his stomach.

When Tai climbed over the fence harmlessly, there was only Aiello, Ryan, Luis and Oliver left.

"Who's next?" Aiello asked after striking a zombie. "Get out of here guys."

Ryan ran to the fence and began climbing over. Aiello told the others to get out while he holds off the zombies, but they protested.

"Aiello, your wife and son needs you!" Luis argued. "You climb over so you can hug your son."

Aiello did not protest when his son mentioned. "You guys better survive." He climbed up and over the fence as quickly as he could. He narrowly avoided the barb wires.

Now it was just Luis and Oliver left to be defending the zombies, and they just kept on coming.

Oliver turned to Luis and grinned. "Let's do this, amigo."

"Si."

Inside the church, Dezeray's stomach began churning upon seeing the remains of her friends. A single tear ran down her cheek as she saw her friends start reanimating into zombies. One sight that truly horrified her was she saw a zombified Julian walk amongst the crowd to eat what remained of the cannibals.

When the weight of zombies on top of the door disappeared, she shoved the door off of her and ran out the window that Hugh smashed earlier. When she was outside the church, she saw that the fence that Hugh climbed over was completely pushed towards the ground by the zombie's.

She sprints and jumps over the barb wires. The zombies reached for her, but she dodged their grasps

"Oh god." She said as she spotted an extremely tall zombie heading her way, standing over six-foot-eleven.

Horror struck both Luis and Oliver as they saw the tall zombie heading their way. Their knives and other blades were running dull and shattering upon impact. Out of fear, Luis backed as far away as he could from the zombies, only to be grabbed and pulled back into the crowd by the zombies. He fought and fought and managed to break away.

He ran as fast as he could to get away from the zombies, shouting hoping that he could distract them and buy Oliver enough time to escape.

That was the last any Moral One saw of Luis.

Oliver decided it was time to escape and started climbing over the fence. The tall zombie made it before he could get to the very top. It used its massive strength to push the fence all the way to the ground.

Oliver tried to jump off, but he got caught and trapped in the barb wire as the fence fell to the ground. Aiello backed away and ran to go help Oliver out, but he shouted for him so stay back.

"Hang on, Oliver!"

"Get the hell out of here! Get away!" Those were Oliver's last words. The zombies landed on top of him and began tearing into Oliver's back with their teeth and fingers. He howls in terror and pain. One of the zombies bit into his neck, releasing a lot of blood to the ground and the tall zombie grabbed his head and tore it right from its body.

Aiello backed away in horror, crying at seeing his friend consumed by zombies. At least it was zombies and not humans, he thought as optimistically as possible but was unable to.

Aiello ran back to his son and shield his eyes from the sight of seeing Oliver devoured.

Aiello took his Ruger 30 from his shoulder, gave his son to his wife and checked his rifle. It still had only bullet left inside.

Remembering his code, he decides not to waste the one bullet. He and his entire family and friends back away as far as possible from the overrun church. Whatever happened to the cannibals and robbers did not matter at this point. What mattered was escaping. Oliver was not going to be forgotten for his sacrifice though.

Hugh's stomach was bleeding badly, but he managed to stand upright when walking through the graveyard of the church. The pack had a code where it anything were to happen to their safe haven, a fail safe policy was all cannibals meet up in the graveyard.

So far, the only one who showed up besides Hugh was Dezeray and four other cannibals.

"What happened to the robbers?" Hugh asked.

"Every single one of them was killed by the zombies. That plan of theirs backfired on them," a cannibal answered.

"Where are the meatheads?" Hugh asked.

"I saw them run off before I arrived here. Six of them are alive. One of them had their heads ripped off," Dezeray answered.

"They ran in that direction." A cannibal pointed. A zombie snuck up on Hugh, but Dezeray killed it with Hugh's knife.

Everybody else is dead sir," Dezeray panted. "I saw the lead robber commit suicide."

Hugh smiled in satisfaction. "Good. You said six meatheads escape yet last time I counted, there were eight after we killed Sadie."

"The one I saw get consumed was Oliver, and I failed to see Luis. I have no idea if he's alive or dead."

"Don't matter. We are going to find those seven meatheads and we are going to eat them. Our goals still stand. We will not stop until we win this battle."

A herd formed from behind the cannibals.

"We should get out of here." Hugh and the five cannibals ran as fast as they could to get out of there.

* * *

Aiello carried Erik on his back, giving him a piggyback ride once again. Erik had been asking where Oliver, Sadie and Luis went. "Erik, they died. They are going to Heaven."

"What's Heaven?" Erik asked. Aiello suddenly realized that he never told his son about his religious beliefs.

"Heaven is a place where good people go when they die. You know, when they are actually 'dead' dead." He explained. "God rules that place, he makes sure that Heaven is a paradise for all the good people."

"Where do bad people go?"

"They go to a land called Hell. Hell is where the bad go to be punished when they die. Someone like me is going to Heaven when they die. You are going to Heaven when you die." Aiello then explained to Erik who God was and how he created the world.

Whenever Erik would ask 'really' then Mila would always back Aiello up with his answer.

"When am I going to die?" Erik asked.

Aiello did not like this question. "Not for a very long time. You will die after this zombie apocalypse is over."

* * *

_Day 26_

_Aiello wakes up with a bandage on his shoulder. The Faithful had recaptured Aiello and Mila but they nursed Aiello back to health out of good faith. Back at the Romans' headquarters, Atticus cuts Kevin's throat and kills him, leaving Ryan devastated over his loss. He escapes from Atticus and warns the other Romans of Atticus's betrayal but most of the Romans are dead. While Aiello was recovering, Mila expresses gratitude for his sacrifice. He smiles and they share a laugh together._

_Day 26_

_Ryan escapes the Romans' HQ and gets back on a walkie-talkie that was working and warned Aiello and Mila over the radio. At the HQ of The Faithful, the leader reveals to Aiello that the war between the Romans and Faithful was due to different beliefs. The Romans were scientists and engineers while The Faithful were devoted religious people. The two groups have been in conflict with each other for so many years but desire no violence. The Faithful leader let's Aiello and Mila go, and then they received the warning of Atticus's betrayal. Before anyone could react, the wall explodes and sends Aiello in unconsciousness once more. _

* * *

Day 4,614

Aiello looked at the sky and saw it turn orange. It was barely sunset and the street which they walked on was overgrown and empty of cars. Even the houses were empty of anything in the garages and in the front of the houses. The longer they walked, the longer the road stretched.

Aiello looked around him and saw only a handful of zombies. Saving the bullet is what the Moral Ones did. Only when a zombie was in their path did they stab it in the head. When they saw a herd, they knew the right thing to do was to dodge its path.

"Daddy, we can't stay on the road for very long." Erik stated the obvious like it wasn't already. Aiello patted his son on the shoulder.

"You know what son, you are actually right." He tried looking for options. "We could find some kind of vehicle and drive up to that safe haven in the next town." Aiello turned around as he walked to see if he could find any vehicles that his group missed along the way. He was disappointed to find no vehicles but not surprised. The chances of finding a working vehicle with gasoline that hasn't been fossilized were the same as flying to the Moon to sunbathe on the beach. This was no shock. What was a shock to him was a large herd forming in the distance behind them. It was the same herd from the church. They were out of their range and sight.

"Erik is right," Aiello told his group. "But we have no chance in finding a working vehicle. Walking on foot is our only option."

"What about horses?" Tai suggested. "I understand there are no horses around us but could animals be an option?"

"Only if you want to get mauled." Aiello would've gone for that idea but big animals like horses have become scarce after twelve years into the zombie apocalypse. Even if they did find a horse, there is a chance it belonged to someone part of a large group. Large groups were not their forte.

Aiello remembered the robbers. "The robbers had a whole line of vehicles lined up behind them but they're all probably overrun and I doubt that any one of us would be thinking of doubling back to that zombie infested church."

"Still, it's better than walking out on the open road," Tai inputted.

"What do you think, wifey?" he turned to Mika. "I don't know about you but I don't want to be putting our entire group in danger just to get a vehicle that'll last us maybe three hours at most."

She shrugged. "Do you know what survivors would do just to drive three hours in a car? This could save a lot of time for our child." She pauses to think before she reminded him: "And don't ever call me 'wifey'."

Aiello chuckled. "Okay then sweetie. I can call you 'sweetie' because your lips taste as sweet as…" He covers Erik's ears. "Candy."

Mila looked confused. "You could not say that word in front of Erik?"

Aiello kep covering Erik's ears. "If I said that, then he would be on and on me about candy." He removed his hands. "Doubling back should be an option. We'll just have to sneak past that herd and walk another four miles back. The dead, we don't have to worry about. The real threat should be cannibals, if any are still alive."

Aiello waited for any objections. None came from the group.

"Alright then." Aiello said, nodding his head happily. "We are going back to at least see if there are any trucks left. Hopefully those robbers and cannibals are dead, I'm being glass half-full of course. Best case scenario, they are all dead and there is a small number of zombie's left.

"Did we call for a carpool?" Abby asked sarcastically. Aiello failed to understand the humor. Possibly because there was none. "I mean we have an SUV following us."

Aiello heard a tire screech and saw an SUV riding up along the road. It was small in size before it grew the closer it got. Given as to how they are driving up quickly towards the survivors, they knew it was trouble. It was either the robbers or the cannibals. Either way, they were going to be shot at.

"At least that saved us the trouble of heading back," Ryan pointed out.

"And now we have cannibals or robbers about to crush us under their wheels," Mila rolled her eyes.

"Quit standing around anf make a run for it." Aiello ordered and he picked up his son over his shoulders and made a run for it.

"It's the meatheads!" a cannibal shouted from the SUV.

"You caused the destruction of our home!" another cannibal shouted.

"We've got plans for you, motherfuckers!" Hugh shouted from the driver's seat. He slammed his foot on the gas and raced after the survivors. "Don't think you can escape from us. We have guns and we have a big vehicle!"

Aiello took out his pistol and shot at the SUV, only to discover that the vehicle was bulletproof. He then thought of taking the vehicle once they eliminated the cannibals and then they can drive to the safe haven.

The six survivors ran into the closest house in the town, bursting through the front door and coming out the back door into a fenced in backyard. They hop over just as the SUV plowed through the house and came out after them.

The vehicle was parked in front of the house. The cannibals exited out of the vehicle and chased after the group inside but the doors were barred shut.

Aiello quietly ordered for his group to hide while the cannibals searched for a way in the house.

"Six against six huh." Hugh goaded from the front door as the cannibals swarmed around the house. "Aiello, it took us a long time to get this vehicle. The robbers took this truck along with them when they brought a herd of zombies." He explained. Aiello's theory about the vehicles was confirmed correct.

"Aiello, I am going to make you a one-time offer right now. You turn yourself in peacefully, then I will not eat your son. As a matter of fact, I will send him off into the world all by himself. He had nothing left but survival to worry about."

Aiello began seething.

"Like I said, this is a one-time offer. If you decline this right now, then I will go back to my original plans. With a little modification." Hugh took out a knife. "I will kill Tai and Abby, chop up your brother-in-law for us to eat, then your wife and son will be chopped up for you to eat. After that, we will finish whatever is left of you Aiello. Like I said, this is option B if you do no accept the one-time offer option A."

Aiello was not going to let Hugh get inside his head. He already chose his answer. Tai, Abby, Mila, and Ryan surrounded the three windows and each aimed at a target.

"So option B then? Alright, fine by me. Remember, you forced my hand." He shot off the hinges and kicked down the door.

Aiello raised his knife above his head. He threw his knife into Hugh's chest the second the door hit the ground. The others fired and ended up killing all of the cannibals except for Hugh and Dezeray, who was wounded pretty badly from a gunshot wound that Mila gave her after killing her first target.

Erik his behind a couch as his father walked over to Hugh, who was down on his knees and crying in pain. Aiello started at Hugh in pure anger.

"Go on, kill me and get it over with." Hugh snatched the knife from his chest. Aiello snateched it from his hand and continued to stare at him. "Kill me but don't hurt Dezeray."

Aiello took his word for consideration. All the other cannibals were dead, and both Hugh and Dezeray were still alive. All it took was a bullet to end both of their lives. "Hugh, I don't want to kill you, but you forced my hand."

"What?"

"You want revenge. You blame me for destroying your home, but it was the robbers. They led the herd there."

"They wouldn't have been there if not for you!" Hugh said angrily. "We lost our home because of you."

"I can still hear the lust for vengeance in your voice. If I let you live, then there is a good chance you would follow me and my family. The robbers followed me all the way from the border. You could follow my family all the way to New York and slit our throats in our sleep before subsequently cooking and eating us. I am not taking that risk."

"Aiello." He turns red from anger anger. He lunged at Aiello with intent on killing him.

Aiello raised his Ruger 30 so that the barrel was up to Hugh's forehead and fired. Hugh's dead body hit the ground with a soft thud.

Dezeray stared in shock.

Aiello turns to Dezeray and reassures her that nothing will happen. "I will let you go. Let this be a reminder of what happens to people who threaten my family." He ejects the last bullet casing out of his gun before he bends down to face Dezeray. "We will send you on your way with actual food and water and a knife so you have a good chance of surviving." Aiello punched Dezeray in the face and knocked her out. He checked the gunshot wound in her shoulder and called Abby to remove the bullet from her shoulder.

"You are really letting her live?" Tai asked in a mixture of disbelief and horror. "She just shot at us this morning. She's part of the group that killed Vincent and Sadie."

"She is still a living person. What we do as Moral Ones is to make sure that humanity stays civilized."

"I have to agree with Tai on this one," Mila agreed, backing up her friend's belief.

"But if we kill her right now," Ryan argued, "Then we are no better than those bandits, robbers and cannibals."

"She's lying on the ground, defenless," spoke Abby. "It's inhumane to kill her right now."

"My father killing Hugh was just as justifiable," Erik spoke up for his father, "Please don't kill her, Daddy."

Mila said: "When I shot her, I was aiming for her head because she killed our friends."

"She did not kill our friends," Ryan debated.

Tai spoke up next: "Aiello, Dezeray held a gun to your son's temple."

Aiello was still not convinced. "That was a long time ago and as long as my son is alive, I will not commit cold blooded murder in front of him. I did not kill Carmine back in Alaska. I killed Jonathan, but by accident. I have and I will not commit cold blooded murder."

"But Hugh?"

"Hugh was not cold blood. I killed him because he was going to kill me. Technically, there is nothing cold blooded about his death. Killing Dezeray when she is unconscious is cold blooded."

"So we are just sending Dezeray on her way? What if she follows us?"

"We'll blindfold her."

As soon as Abby finished patching up Dezeray, Aiello carried her over his shoulder, the group walked down the hill and to the SUV.

Nighttime had fallen and the driver of the SUV: Ryan, took a sip of water from Abby in the passenger seat.

After they dropped Dezeray off by the side of the road as soon as she was conscious and gave her what they promised. Aiello and his wife played chess in the very back of the vehicle. The chessboard, they always had in their bag.

In the seats in front of Aiello and Mila and behind Ryan and Abby, are where Tai and Erik slept. Abby then fell asleep and left only Tai, Mila and Aiello awake.

"Aiello, you are losing again," she points out to Aiello, taking her husband's pawn with his bishop. "The enemy is coming your way and you have to defend yourself."

Aiello understood the analogy. "I take your bishop with my rook." As a result, Mila used her queen to take out Aiello's rook. "I'm glad we are playing chess together. It was our thing we did just after we accepted the world went to shit."

"Yeah. You would always be smoke and I would always be flame." Mila waited for Aiello to make his move. "I didn't mind you going first."

Aiello moved his remaining rook across the board until it landed E5. He had his wife's king in check. When he pointed that out, a knight came and took his rook.

"Keep an eye out. Be aware of your surroundings," Mila smiled. "Remember that Aiello. Remember that."

Aiello chuckled a bit. "I move my queen to 8A. I got you in check once again, sweetie."

Mila took out Aiello's queen while simultaneously putting her husband in check. "Everything you do has a consequence and a result. That applies to every single decision you make."

Aiello moved his king to the right and out of check, only to be put back in check when Mila moved her rook to G2. "What are you going to do now?"

"I am going to do whatever it takes to protect my king. Do whatever it takes to protect my family from both the zombies and the living. Whatever pawns or bishops or queens come my way, if they pose a threat, I will checkmate their king."

Aiello put his wife back in check.

"Good job," she praised, then made her move.

"What?"

"Checkmate. If this was real, then you would have failed to protect your loved ones. Chess not only reveals how smart you are, but what you are willing to sacrifice to save your loved ones in real life."

"I may have been checkmated once again, but never more. In real life, Mila, I always make sure my enemies are checkmated before they checkmate me." Aiello collects the pieces and places the board underneath his seat.

"I will beat you one day, Mila."

"And I will congratulate you when you do," she promised.

Aiello watched her father leaned back and go to sleep. Aiello wanted to sleep, but decided to load bullets he took from the cannibals into Ruger 30 just in case.

He looked out the side window and gazed at the passing landscape. He managed to spot a sign that said 'Vancouver - 40 miles away'. Aiello took his loved one's words to heart. He was going to make sure that his enemies were checkmated before he was checkmated. He should've done that to Atticus before he killed his friends all those years ago. "I will never lose the game. Not while I am still the leader of the Moral Ones."

* * *

_Day 26_

_Aiello woke up trapped under debris. The Faithful leader was dead and the Romans were executing Faithful survivors. Aiello kills the remaining Roman soldiers before he is ambushed by Atticus. He puts up a fight and questions why Atticus was a traitor. Atticus's motive was that he was displeased with how this group was functioning and wanted to go solo after killing them. His serial killer side broke out. Aiello tricked Atticus into letting his guard down before he stabbed the former prisoner in the heart and finally killed him. Before he died, he lit up a light and dropped it on a trail of gasoline that he created ahead of time. Aiello runs, saving Mila from being trapped under debris and carried her out. The building went up in flames but they managed to jump out a window in time and fall into a river. When they were underwater, Aiello and Mila looked at each other and despite being underwater, smiled at one another and shared a kiss._

* * *

**That is it. This story is officially done. This will either be a standalone story or gave a sequel. Either way, I hope you enjoyed it. As always,review, favorite, follow, constructively criticise. Good night, Merry Christmas, and have a Happy New Year.**


End file.
